When my hair looked like this:
I wore big earrings. There was SO MUCH HAIR that anything subtle or small just got lost. There was no point. Might as well have gone bare-lobed. I have on a pair of thick, medium-sized hoops in this photo but you can just barely see them, am I right? It was hair vs. earrings every time.
Now that my hair looks like this:
I wear tiny earrings. I mean, not all the time. Some outfits definitely demand big, funky danglers and I do love to wear those and show them off in certain contexts. But overall I’ve shifted to studs, and larger earring styles often seem … wrong somehow. It took me ages to figure out why, but I think I’ve got it.
This pixie cut exposes my neck, so I’ve been inclined to do a lot of scarves and chunky necklaces. With such a close crop, doing big earrings AND a big necklace creates an imbalance. You can see all of both, and it just looks like a jewelry hogpile in my face/neck area. With scarves, it’s more of a safety issue. Anything longer than a few centimeters is likely to snag on the scarf, giving me visions of torn earlobes and ER visits. So I’ve stuck to studs on most days, and loved the clean, streamlined look they create.
And that’s your dose of sartorial overthinking for the day.
Ever give thought to balancing your earrings with your hairstyle? If you’ve got a short cut, do you do big earrings or small ones? Switch off? Make the choice based on other outfit elements, like necklaces and necklines? If you’ve got long hair, ever feel like small earrings are a waste? Do you go big and bold to offset your locks?
P.S. Considering this post title, some of you may feel jilted. So heres a pixie and here’s a stud.
{ 36 comments… read them below or add one }
Ha, ha, Sally — Looking at the link, I was hoping to see a studly guy, and you didn’t disappoint!
Oh, Ryan Gosling…
Dearest Sal,
ANYTIME you feel like posting pics of pixies and studs, please, feel free to do so : D
I have a short cut – well, very short on the back and longer at the front – and either wear big statement earrings like hoops, chandeliers, etc, or opt for a small but very glittery stud. I think the bigger earrings look more ‘fashion’ which is why I tend to choose those over smaller studs. However, I should also mention I only have one ear pierced (the opposite side to the way my hair falls) so I think that affects it too!
Elly
I have very short hair (just slightly longer than yours in the front, Sal) and I mostly wear large earrings. I am conscious of how my larger earrings coordinate with my necklaces or scarves, but I often feel there is a good balance. Like you, I do think about the interplay of long dangly earrings and wispy scarves – those days, I generally stick to smaller hoops.
Thanks for the morning dose of RG. A little Ryan and a little coffee wakes this girl up!
I tend to be an accessory minimalist, and in the past have always preferred the statement earring with short hair, and no necklaces. Note that I say “earring”; I like asymmetry. My short haircuts are very often one-sided, and I also like to wear one large earring on one side, accompanied by a posse of little earrings in the other holes. But all of my jewellery tends to the large and dramatic, and when I do wear it, it tends to be one piece at a time plus maybe a ring.
That said, for the last I don’t know how long I’ve had the same pair of black captured rings in two ear piercings, and nothing else — from long hair to short undercut and now to growing-out mess. Just haven’t been interested in earrings lately.
I have quite short hair – just longer than yours and I generally wear smaller earrings. The reason I do it is because the movement of large earrings is distracting and never-ending. When I had longer hair, long earrings would sort of “rest” in it, but now they can fly wherever they want and that’s just too much movement for me.
Oh thank you for the Hey Girl! My morning is a bit more beautiful now. Earring tend to get lost in my curly hair, so I focus on the neckline and, esp lately, bracelets. I am always looking for bangles now when I thrift!
OK, now that my knees have recovered their strength after my look at The Stud (more than once, I must confess, but I know you will all understand…) let me comment on the ostensible subject of this post.
I have medium short hair and really like pretty earrings. No chandeliers; they are too much for my taste and preferences, but I do like hoops and drops. Studs are handy for when I am also wearing a necklace and don’t want to overdo the jewelry.
Some of my favorite earring pairs are now singles because of the loss or desertion of their partners. I like to play matchmaker and wear some of these singles together. A trial “coffee date” will tell me whether they hit it off and can be paired up again, perhaps even in some sort of permanent partnership arrangement.
I have super short hair and I never wear big earrings. I do have a couple of pairs of understated tear drop earrings but I have to be super careful with proportions because I have small features.
I have glasses so that is my biggest consideration when wearing earrings. I think big earrings look bad with glasses, and I believe I’ve read some fashion advice to that effect. (That said, if there are any of you that like your glasses and big earrings, don’t let me offend you!) When my hair’s short or up in a ponytail, I tend to wear earrings and when it’s long I forget about them for the most part.
Yes, this is my issue. I wear glasses every day, and while I think big earrings and glasses can work together, if I’m wearing big earrings then I won’t usually wear a necklace. Or a barretted ponytail, big earrings and glasses can be an issue too. I won’t give up all of my big earrings, but I am mindful of the overall impact of so much stuff on my head
I have a very short pixie cut also. I generally still wear longer earrings but have been sticking with more delicate ones rather big and funky-chunky (not really my thing most of the time anyway). I have a few pairs of posts and do enjoy wearing them since I cut all my hair off again but as I really only wear a simple pendent necklace most of the time and scarves in the cooler months, I feel like wearing longer earrings is still the most flattering.
When my hair was super short (think Emma Watson post-Harry Potter) I needed to wear bold, hanging earrings. Otherwise I really looked like a boy.
Now that my hair is chin-length, I’m back to studs and will occasionally do a menswear inspired outfit. When my hair was shorter I didn’t dress as femininely and I think if I had, I could have worn more stud earrings. So the point? I guess I’m the opposite of you
I have long, straight hair that I wear both down and up. I generally lean towards the minimalist side in choosing jewelry, so except for a few “fancy” pairs all of my earrings are studs or small drops or hoops.
If I’m wearing a necklace or scarf, I’m definitely wearing studs or no earrings at all, depending on where the necklace/scarf sits and how big it is. I also find that if I’m wearing my hair up I prefer wearing studs; drops or hoops just don’t look right to my eye.
Also, my default earrings are pearl studs. I used to never remove them, but now I just wear them most days.
Earrings are hard, I find. Perhaps because I also wear glasses, that´s always a consideration. I have long hair, but I always wear it up. Most of the time I find myself choosing rather small, but dangly things. I don´t want them to be chandelier-type, it doesn´t really suit my personality (sensible, you know), but the stud is a bit too invisible. So I go middle-of-the-road.
I’m pretty much the same. When I had a pixie I only wore studs, now that my hair is longer I will wear longer/larger earrings when my hair is down, but still only studs or very thin hoops when my hair is pulled back.
Love that stud! Funny about earrings and hair. When I get my hair cut, my next stop is to find new earrings. I agree with some previous posters that when my hair is long, I wear longer earrings because they nest in the hair. When my hair is short, as it is now, I go for the smaller studs. My go to is a square diamond pair from my dh on a big birthday.
I’ve had short hair for a while now, and I’ve definitely been gravitating more towards big–nay, GIANT earrings. Especially during my buzz-cut stage, giant earrings made me feel so dramatic and made the buzz cut look and feel more intentional, like here:
http://readinginskirts.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/outfit-post-61212/
Even now that my hair’s grown out, though, I tend to drift toward big honkin’ earrings:
http://readinginskirts.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/outfit-post-9512/
Maybe it’s just that I don’t wear big necklaces or scarves as often. I DO have to temper the statement earrings with stages of delicate-earring-wearing, though–those big suckers are heavy!
I usually wear quite small earrings, it doesn’t really make a difference if I wear my hair up or down… I just don’t like the feeling of big earrings even though I like how they look on others.
I have short hair (like yours), and find that I generally prefer having a statement something – either earrings or necklace – but not both. I don’t have many necklaces yet, so it’s usually earrings. But I think I prefer the look of a statement necklace with smaller earrings as an overall look. Someday, I’ll make sure to get some really great necklaces.
Interesting! I’ve never given the relationship between my earrings and my hairstyle much thought, although going from a bob to a pixie cut is a dramatic enough change to make one reconsider accessories.
I usually think about my earrings in relation to my other jewelry, and lately I’ve been favouring stud earrings because I also happen to like bold bangles or statement necklaces. If I’m wearing a big necklace, I’ll wear very tiny studs or no earrings, or if I have a bangle on, I’ll do chunkier stud earrings.
It’s funny you mention this: since I stopped straightening my hair, I have started wearing much bigger earrings, for exactly the reason you mention. Giant hoops can get lost in my curls, let alone anything smaller!
I’ve also found I wear longer necklaces now, because having something draw more attention to my collarbone area looks slightly strange to me, maybe because that’s the length of my hair?
I will never have big hair, so that question is sort of redundant, but for me it’s kind of the opposite: when I have my hair up I am more likely to wear dangly earrings, because you can see them and it balances out the plainness of the hair, whereas when my hair is down, I usually just wear studs, just so my ears aren’t ‘naked’
I do the same! Studs with shorter styles and chunkier drops earrings with longer hair.
The only thing I always avoid is chandelier earrings or ones with lots of moving parts — my hair is aggressively curly and will eat (i.e. tangle in) earrings that aren’t drops or studs.
I have long hair, but when I do wear my hair up in a bun or ponytail, I tend to stick with small earrings. I’ve worn big earrings in the past, but they were just too heavy and fussy.
I’m exactly the opposite. When my hair was long, earrings would get lost so I just never bothered. Now that it’s shorter I wear earrings, generally big dangly ones.
When I was in college (my 10 year reunion is this weekend, yikes!), I had an anthropology professor who had her hair cropped short. It took me a few minutes here to remember her name just now, but I will never forget how much I loved the big, bold earrings that she always wore! I think it will be many years yet before I’d ever consider cutting my hair that short, but I’ve always had it in my head that when I do, I will wear big earrings like she did.
I loved the way the colors and metals cascaded down her neck, and danced when she shook her head.
I cut my hair short two years ago, and when it cooperates, I love it, but sometimes it looks like a schoolboy’s flop of hair falling in my eyes. Since my figure is not particularly feminine, I compensate for it and the floppy hair by wearing dangly earrings (usually 1-2 inches long) or plain hoops. This is the only jewelry I wear. My hair went from waist length to shoulder length and back again for the twenty years before the Big Chop, and I rarely wore earrings because they would tangle in my hair.
I’ve had really short hair for the past few years, and my tastes in earrings tend to fluctuate based upon occasions. For regular work or grad school days, I like to wear these tiny black plastic studs I’ve probably had since high school, and I really want to get tiny white pearls and tiny silver studs in order to make that subtle look more versatile. My teensy gold hoops and silver ones get a lot of play too.
This might have more to do with my other accessories though – I will break out from wearing any type of necklace, so I almost always wear big vintage silk scarves and make them the focal point of my outfit. I’ve also started wearing a few bracelets, but don’t exactly have a nice big collection yet, so I often revert to just my black leather cuff or plain gold bangle depending on what other metals I’m wearing.
However on the weekends or when I just feel like switching it up a bit, I have big earrings shaped like a cutout bird sillouhette, small dangly earrings with a black and white floral patterned disk on them, large turquoise-colored studs, and some other fun earrings for a less minimalist look.
No huge hoops or giant dangly earrings though – I’ve been through that phase and I got tired of my earlobes hurting and having to worry about them catching on my scarves!
When I had a pixie, I wore shoulder-length earrings.
I have the exact same thoughts about my hair and accessories, especially the bit about long earrings snagging on scarves. I tend to prefer either a large necklace and no earrings, or both on the small side. When I wear scarves I tend not to bother with earrings at all.
i also do the opposite. now that i cut off my hair [again] i tend to wear ginormous earrings. they used to get caught in my hair all the time [still in scarves occasionally] but they are so much easier to accessorize for the summer. occasionally i’ll wear all little studs, but it makes me feel just a tad naked.
I have very long, fine hair. When I used to wear it down, I wore pretty big earrings. Now that I cover it (and consequently, have it up, under the scarf), I wear mostly the same earrings- but I feel that when I do wear smaller earrings, they don’t get quite as lost. And sometimes, it provides a really dramatic background for the larger earrings in my collection…
Definitely makes sense. I always feel weird wearing big earrings when I have my hair up, unless they’re of the sleek dangly variety.
I’m another who has short hair and who always wears dangles. The earrings might be big or small — but definitely dangly! For me it feels more feminine, a counterbalance to the short hair.
I’m more likely to play with color or whimsical shapes than size of earrings. I do own some big flashy ones, but for the most part they’re fairly lightweight, because I hate it when earrings make your ears hurt!
I’m late posting, but wanted to say you have the sweetest smile