I vividly remember way back in 2014 when Jennifer Lawrence stepped onto the red carpet at the SAG Awards wearing a slender diamond line ear cuff by Anita Ko with long pendant earrings. She had short hair at the time, which really showed off the super simple jewel. It blew my mind. I had never seen an ear cuff on the red carpet before. I don’t think there had ever been one. A stampede of others have followed in JLaw’s footsteps.

If you are wondering about the history of ear cuffs and if they existed before the 2010s,  some do claim the style can be traced back to ancient times, like so many things in the world of fine jewelry. I don’t believe this is entirely accurate. The ear ornaments worn in the distant past in Egypt, Greece and India are not in the mode of the styles today. Ancient ear ornaments often decorated the earlobe and went around the back of the ear, curling around the top helix. Even the ear ornaments from the mid-20th century are different than 21st-century styles.

Contemporary ear cuffs are circles with an open section. The concept is the same as that of a cuff bracelet, which has an opening to put it on the wrist. The opening on the ear cuff makes it possible to slide the jewel down the helix and decorate the earscape without any piercings. I believe it evolved from the piercings popularized by the punk movement. People wanted the unconventional look without committing to a hole in their head.

While the ear cuff seemed like a trend when it debuted, it has never gone away. In fact, the opposite is true. Its popularity has grown with every passing year. Now even classic labels like Cartier and Tiffany are making ear cuffs in their signature T and Juste un Clou collections respectively.

Ear cuffs by COUTURE designers ANITA KO, EMILY P. WHEELER, MARIE MAS, RAINBOW K, RENNA, SORELLINA and SPINELLI KILCOLLIN come in a wide variety of styles.

Anita Ko

A pioneer in the ear cuff category, Anita Ko still makes the original style Jennifer Lawrence sported in 2014. But she also has lots of other larger and more elaborate ear cuffs. Like so many designers now, she makes ear cuffs to coordinate with earrings.

It’s the equivalent of a modern day suite of jewelry. While women in the mid-20th century wore a matching necklace, earring and ring set, today they could have a couple of earrings and an ear cuff that are all coordinated. Anita does the look in shiny gold and gem set designs.

Emily P. Wheeler

Another way to wear ear cuffs is to pile them on. Judging by the styling of Emily P. Wheeler’s model, she clearly approves of this look. The Los Angeles–based designer makes a variety of doughnut-shaped options with solid, candy-colored gems. She also has ombré designs.

Marie Mas

French designer Marie Mas’s ear cuffs look like hand-drawn wavy lines of diamonds or gold. Some are punctuated by a center stone. They all have a sense of movement and glamour. And they make me wonder why we only wore earrings in the standard lobe position for so long.

Renna

Renna Brown-Taher has elegantly evolved her collection in a romantic and historic direction. Her wardrobe of ear cuffs includes styles covered with stones in an artful variation on a pavé-setting, which makes them feel like something from the Victorian era. The baguette diamond set ear cuff or the piece with briolette fringe would’ve been so perfect for a flapper in the Jazz Age.

Sorellina

Ear cuffs by Sorellina designer Nicole Carosella come in strong hexagonal shapes. The collection includes thin gold versions and thicker ones with lines of diamonds. A hidden hinge segment on the side makes it easy to open one up and clip it on the ear.

Spinelli Kilcollin

Like the biggest houses in jewelry, Spinelli Kilcollin have taken their signature style of a ring with a little ring on it and transformed it into an ear cuff. Designers Yves Spinelli and Dwyer Kilcollin also have perfect, round diamond ear cuffs in the collection that sparkle plenty.

Rainbow K

French label Rainbow K, designed by Parisians Kelly Souied and Kelia Toledano, has some of the largest ear cuffs I have ever seen. They fully coordinate with other pieces in their collection and loudly and proudly prove, if any more evidence was needed, that ear cuffs are here to stay.

Marion Fasel writes about history and contemporary trends in The Adventurine newsletter on Substack. The author of 11 books focusing on 20th-century jewelry design, Marion’s most recent publication, The History of Diamond Engagement Rings, was named “One of the best coffee table books for 2026” by The Wall Street Journal.