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While Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet has been nominated for eight Academy Awards including best picture, for many it is a tiny silver hoop earring worn by Paul Mescal in his portrayal of William Shakespeare that steals the show. Worn in his left ear lobe, the barely there hoop has people fixated online.
“Begging my boyfriend to get a tiny hoop earring too,” reads one post dedicated to the accessory. “I cried for over half of Hamnet, but Paul Mescal’s slutty little earring made me feel conflicted,” reads another.
Mescal previously sent viewers of Normal People into a frenzy over Connell’s chain, a thin silver “Argos chic” necklace, and shortly after thrust short shorts into the mainstream. Now the Mescal effect seems to be coming for lobes.
The search platform Lyst reports a 7% increase in demand for men’s earrings quarter on quarter. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the jewellery brand and piercing studio Astrid & Miyu says over half of male purchases are now for piercing services with key placements including the lower lobe and tragus – a piece of cartilage that covers the ear canal. Huggies (hoops that sit tightly around the lobe) and singular hoop earrings have become its highest revenue-driving categories for men.
While some Hamnet viewers are confused as to why a bard living in 1596 is wearing what appears to be a modern piece of jewellery, the decision to include it by the film’s costume designer, Malgosia Turzanska, and the director, Zhao, was deliberate. Speaking to the Guardian, Turzanska said many people “assume it is an anachronistic detail, or something that was simply overlooked, but of course it was a carefully chosen detail”.
Zack Pinsent, a historical tailor and consultant, said that during the Elizabethan period earrings were widespread. “You couldn’t move for men wearing earrings. It was a sign of wealth and status. A labourer for example couldn’t afford to wear a gold earring.”
Turzanska, whose work on the film landed her an Academy Award nomination, took her inspiration from Sir Walter Raleigh’s 1588 portrait where the adventurer wears a pearl earring, and the Chandos portrait. The oil painting, created some time between 1600 and 1610 and housed in London’s National Portrait Gallery, is thought to be the only known Shakespeare portrait made from life. Attributed to the artist John Taylor, Shakespeare is depicted wearing a white-collared top with a glistening hoop in his left ear.
Turzanska said she “wanted to capture the energy of that likeness, but without overpowering the character played by Paul [Mescal]. His Will [Shakespeare] is so distant from anything over the top, so we wanted to go for a subtle nod to the era.”
Before Hamnet, Mescal regularly wore a gold hoop in his right ear including to his first audition with Zhao. The film-maker has described having “a casting process” for the earring where the choice of metal, colour and size was discussed. The final decision resulted in Mescal piercing his left lobe and covering the right one with makeup.
“We opted for a small white gold hoop that does not draw attention to itself,” Turzanska said. “I think it goes well with the way Paul wears Will’s costume – the clothes move, the sleeves are rolled up, the neckline often open – it feels very modern and alive.”
Mescal is not the only catalyst for the trend. James Norton’s singular silver hoop in the TV show House of Guinness has been called “the sexiest thing on TV” while Diego Calva and his gold earring in season two of The Night Manager is getting attention on a par with Tom Hiddleston’s bare bottom from season one.
The hoop hype is happening off-screen too. Jacob Elordi, who stars as Heathcliff in the latest adaptation of Wuthering Heights, likes to wear tiny hoops in both lobes while Josh O’Connor prefers a singular silver hoop in his left ear.
Throughout history, earrings for men have fallen in and out of favour. Pinsent says they were popular with men around the time of the French Revolution and among Georgian macaronis. During the Victorian period, clip-ons were preferred owing to the heaviness of pearl and jewel styles.
Similar to drinking matcha and reading The Bell Jar in public, some critics link the singular hoop fixation with a performative male culture. However, Pinsent says it is more of “a modern phenomenon of men not wearing all the bling. People are now so ingrained with what their own idea of masculinity is. Let’s remember at one point in time wearing pink was the most manly thing you could do.”
