Update: Italian Vogue has – since yesterday – edited the entry. They are now called Ethnic Earrings and the mention of slavery has been completely removed. Carry on.
Jewellery has always flirted with circular shapes, especially for use in making earrings. The most classic models are the slave and creole styles in gold hoops.
If the name brings to the mind the decorative traditions of the women of colour who were brought to the southern Unites States during the slave trade, the latest interpretation is pure freedom. Colored stones, symbolic pendants and multiple spheres. And the evolution goes on.
Anna Bassi, Vogue Gioiello n. 109, March 2010
You’re welcome. And also, make of that what you will.I tried to write out/decide on my own reaction to it and couldn’t get anywhere, so I’m sticking with simply gobsmacked, neutral as far as good or bad. (NOTE: The bold and italics are not mine, btw. That’s the way it’s published if you follow the link to Italian Vogue.)
August 23, 2011 at 6:43 am
you weren’t the only one with this reaction. The article and description are now taken down with this little tidbit:
WE’VE DECIDED TO REMOVE THE ARTICLE FROM THE SITE TO
PROVE OUR GOOD FAITH AND TO SHOW IT WASN’T OUR
INTENTION TO INSULT ANYONE.
The funny thing about racists is that most of them don’t know their actions give them away, nor do they themselves even understand that what they are doing is even racist. They aren’t bad people per se, just really ignorant and shallow. But look big hooped earrings!!!!
And just in case any reader here doesn’t understand, “slave” isn’t a race. White people started out as European slaves before people of African decent. And Africa isn’t a country either, it’s a continent. Very many different cultures with different aesthetics and ethnicities. Hooped earrings is not universal. Stereotyping and categorizing based on false assumptions is a racist action.
August 23, 2011 at 7:20 am
See but I wasn’t convinced it was racist. The only reason I was flabbergasted was because of how they used slavery and then described the earrings (worn ostensibly throughout that era) as “pure freedom”. Vraiment?
Well. That and the fact that the earrings were worn previously and consistently afterward. So since when did slavery become a selling point, I guess is the question. It’s not a new style and it’s not a categorically slave style.
I just didn’t get it. Calling it racism might have been an oversimplification.