These Aren't Your Grandmother's Pearls

One of the most iconic portraits of Coco Chanel, captured by Herb Ritts, saw her wearing layered strands of pearls. The designer famously once said: "A woman needs ropes and ropes of pearls," and though it's been over 45 years since her death, Karl Lagerfeld has kept her penchant for the world's oldest gem alive and well; in recent years Chanel's collection have shown various iterations of the opulent stone, with oversized pearls on models' necks and wrists, and on jackets and bags.

This past season, other designers followed suit, with pearls adorning different kinds of attire, from Ellery's oversized minimalist olive-green suit to Ashley Williams' western-inspired mini dresses. Ryan Lo gave his cyber-pop models pearl collars, while Jour/né teamed ruffled Bardot tops and loose trousers with layered pearl belts and Huishan Zhang presented what we predict will be the new racing stripe: vertical lines of pearls running down the front of trousers. In short: Pearls have been freed from the straight-laced and the stuffy, and are now worn with a heavy dose of contemporary cool. And with fall on the horizon, our closets could use a little something fresh.