Chanel Earrings Jewelry Review: Gold, Pearls, Diamonds

Chanel earrings comprise one of the company's deepest and most expressive jewelry segments. Intricate linear movements and preference for small yet complete shapes, botanical, geometrical, or even irregular, gives the pieces a strong aesthetic foundation; clever, original use of precious metals, gems, and pearls completes the job of transforming the earrings into genuine fine jewelry.

Vintage items veer towards large and rounded designs – in effect brooches that attach to earlobes – with the occasional pendant (pearl, onyx, golden garland, CC logo) descending from the main piece. Today's classic collections, including Ultra, Cometes, Elements, Camellia, Mademoiselle, and Coco, pay more attention to the pendant/dangling components, offering what essentially becomes a selection of pendant earrings.

The somewhat idle, aristocratic panache of these designs accords well with Chanel's unique charm (as we discussed in introductory review-guide), reasserting it in a convincing and transparently elegant manner.

Many pendant creations introduce the idea of scales into the designs, incorporating two or three strands – each stringed with white gold diamond pave piece, pearls, or gemstones – attached in a deliberately imbalanced fashion; one strand appears to outweigh the other. In particular, the ceramic black bricks resemble cast-iron weights used in the distant past.

While the inherent symmetry (left earring, right earring) takes some of the edge off of the resulting visual tension, this layout acts like an optical spring, continuously winding and unwinding, drawing attention to itself.

Tassel pendants, on the contrary, aim to diffuse tension and instill calm, as if caressing the eye with the multiple thin chains and threads.

Knot Earrings from 2010/2011 collection reveals subtle references to David Yurman cable configurations: his knots are thicker and more entangled, Chanel's softer, more delicate.

Chinese influenced creation from 2009/2010 also employ knots – though these evince harmony and symmetry that later models abandoned in favor of irregular, chaotic (but never banal) realism.