Fleeting Fashions

Ok, I'm going to put this right up front.  I'm older than dirt.  Well, maybe not quite that old, but old enought to remember the day Kennedy died, but not the night  Lincoln was shot.  In fact, I'm one of those baby boomers you hear so much about.  So as a result, I pretty much came of age in the turbulent 60's.

If you grew up in a small town in the 60's, as I did, you were really still stuck living in the 50's.  So when I went off to  a huge college, where my freshman class was bigger than my whole town in 65, I was confused about a lot of things.  And I wasn't alone.  At the beginning of the sexual revolution, and during the protests about Viet Nam, I and many of my roommates, were seriously conflicted about piercing our ears.  We would literally debate for hours over getting our ears pierced.  Because getting your ears pierced wasn't something "nice" girls did. 

But the jewelry manufacturers of the 60's apparently saw our dilemma and came up with a solution.  They designed a screw back earring that looked pierced from the front.  Yep, for two years, I and my friends anxiously searched stores for earrings that made it appear our ears were pierced so we wouldn't actually have to go out and do it.

The earrings were designed like the standard screw back earring.  They were generally long and dangly.  At the top, there was just a single wire.  I've included some examples, because I'm sure I haven't explained this clearly. 

This fashion must have been a real boon to jewelry manufacturers.  Because there wasn't really anything to hold the earring in place, they were easily lost and constantly replaced.  I'm sure I never purchased a pair that lasted more than three wearings.

As quickly as this style appeared, it disappeared.  For me, these are easy earrings to date because I remember them so well.  And whenever I come across this style of earrings, I always think back of my college days and the innocence they represented.