THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. **** Saturday/Sunday, March 14 - 15, 2020 |D3
STYLE & FASHION
HARRY STYLES,the British singer,
former One Direction member, part-
time actor and persistent wearer of
high-waisted trousers, has added a
new unofficial gig to his résumé:
popularizer of the manly pearl
necklace. In recent months he’s
rarely made a public appearance
without a single strand of delicate
white pearls dangling from his
neck. Mr. Styles has worn them on
“The Graham Norton Show,” “The
Late Late Show with James
Corden,” “The Ellen DeGeneres
Show,” “BBC Radio 1” and at the
Brit Awards, among other outlets.
The floppy-maned star is not
the only notable who appears to
have raided Nana’s jewelry box.
Milky pearl necklaces have swayed
around the necks of rapper A$AP
Rocky, designer-cum-Instagram-in-
fluencer Marc Jacobs, pop star
Shawn Mendes and the ageless
Pharrell Williams. For attention-
seeking men, explained Mark-EvanBlackman, assistant professor of
fashion design-menswear special-
ist at the Fashion Institute of
Technology, pearls serve as a stra-
tegic substitute for the now-ubiq-
uitous gold chain: “If you were to
put a gold chain around your neck,
no one would be talking about you,
because it’s been done a thousand
times.” A gold chain says “mun-
dane,” but a rope of prim pearls
on a man? That’s beguiling.
As phenomena go, the masc-
pearl mystique is relatively new.
While the coveted orbs have signi-
fied wealth and taste on women
for centuries, they’ve only rarely
distinguished men, mostly Asian
or European royals with particu-
larly glittery tastes. Eighteenth-
century Indian Maharajas draped
themselves in mounds of frosty
pearls, and that tradition has
trickled down: When Mr. Blackman
attended a wedding in India
around 15 years ago, men in thecurrent collaboration between
Comme des Garçons and Japanese
pearl specialists Mikimoto shows a
man in a traditional suit with a
string of delicate pearls perched
on his tie. In the March issue of
WSJ. Magazine, A$AP Rocky posed
with a rope of pearls from that
collaboration atop a white T-shirt.
Pearls for men are part of a
larger trend, catalyzed by fashion
labels like Gucci and Givenchy,
that injects classically feminine
ideas into the male wardrobe.
“The pearl is the quintessential
feminine accessory,” said Chris
Green, the general merchandise
manager at retailers Totokaelo
and Need Supply Co. in New York
City, who has worn pearls for sev-
eral years now. When used to ac-
cessorize a modest, masculine out-
fit—say, the T-shirt and plaid coat
that Harry Styles sported in Lon-
don in December—pearls add a
potent, even disorienting, dainti-ness that’s macho in its audacious-
ness.
Has such pop-culture visibility
for male-pearls driven men of lesser
fame to the jewelry store? Indeed.
“More recently, we certainly do
have more men who purchase our
regular strands,” said Yugo
Tsukikawa, senior VP of marketing
and brand strategy at Japan’s Mi-
kimoto, a global jeweler known as
one of the first purveyors of cul-
tured pearls. Mr. Tsukikawa noted
that, while male shoppers have long
purchased single-pearl cuff links,
clients are now gravitating toward
Akoya (white) pearl necklaces.
Though he declined to name spe-
cific stars, Mr. Tsukikawa suggested
that shoppers were influenced by
pearl-flashing male icons, particu-
larly in the celeb-obsessed U.S.
The relative affordability of
pearls bolsters their relative popu-
larity. A strand of Mikimoto’s
Akoya pearls starts at $2,910, but
you can easily find cheaper an-
tique versions. “Get them from the
vintage shop,” advised Mr. Green,
who amassed his pearl collection
without a serious outlay. Etsy, the
online marketplace, lists over
61,000 results for “vintage pearl
necklace” with some selling for
under $100, and costume pieces
going for even less. If that still
seems too steep for a risky trend,
you can always borrow a set from
grandma.ON TREND/JACOB GALLAGHER
The New Look of Pearls:
Unflinchingly Male
Sir Bhowsingji, Maharaja of Bhavnagar,
Early 20th. c GETTY IMAGESHarry Styles,
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noongons.com4 51 2 3bridal party were drenched in mul-
tiple strands. Meanwhile, in the
West, the man-pearl has appeared
only infrequently—and very dis-
creetly—in the past few decades.
On a 2005 cover of Italian Vanity
Fair, Pierce Brosnan smoldered
with a solitary brownish pearl
slung on a cord around his neck.As for the men’s white pearl
necklace, Mr. Williams was an
early adopter, arriving so adorned
at the Time 100 Gala in 2014. This
past year the look popped: Male
models on runways for brands like
Ryan Roche and Palomo Spain
donned strands, while an ad for aOn a man, a gold chain
says ‘mundane,’ but prim
pearls are beguiling.Knits That Are Lit