TRENDS IN THE INDUSTRY
CHRISTINA SHULL
Integrity Piercing
When Alicia Silverstone starred in Aerosmith’s “Cryin’” video, she was a young woman dealing with heartbreak by running away and getting her navel pierced. Please note that the piercing in the video is staged as her navel had previously been pierced by Paul King. Subsequently women everywhere flocked to their local piercer for an adorable and potentially rebellious navel piercing of their own. While this was the first large-scale body piercing trend inspired by the media, this was only the beginning.
video “Cryin’”
This is when we started seeing body piercing trends inspired by musical celebrities. In the absence of social media, television played a large role, particularly the television station MTV.
Long before the birth of social media, MTV and its stars inspired many piercing trends. The popularity of tongue piercings surged in the ’90s and can be largely credited to two European groups. Both of these groups were in frequent rotation on MTV. The first, Keith Flint, a lead vocalist for the electronic band, The Prodigy, often displayed his tongue piercing in the band’s music videos and photo shoots. I personally loved The Prodigy. While I wish I could credit Keith as the inspiration for having my tongue pierced as a teenager, the credit somewhat embarrassingly must be given to Melanie Brown, aka “Scary Spice”, of the Spice Girls, the second of the two MTV influences.
Eyebrow piercings also seemingly hit the height of their popularity in the ’90s and can be tied to hard rock bands featured often on MTV. Jonathan Davis, lead singer of Korn, had a signature look of three eyebrow piercings all on one side featuring captive bead rings. Sully Erna, lead singer of Godsmack, had a set of eyebrow piercings often seen with curved barbells. This is also noteworthy as piercers were starting to move away from captive bead rings and towards curved barbells for initial eyebrow piercings. So as much as these celebrities influence popular fashion and trends, the piercer behind the scenes has a lot more influence than they may realize at the time.
We have also seen very specific jewelry styles influenced by these artists. I would say the single most distinguishable jewelry trend would be that of David Draiman, lead singer of Disturbed. This hard rock band hit the height of their fame in the early 2000s. He had paired lip piercings that featured a pair of threaded talons that hung down and tucked underneath his chin. While the popularity of paired lip piercings has made a comeback in the form of recent requests for “snake bites”, David and his unique jewelry selection can be credited for the original popularity of paired lip piercings.
Moving forward through time it is worth noting Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” at the Superbowl XXXVIII as a runner up when it comes to trends in distinguishable jewelry. Most piercers will agree that at that time, nipple shields had been a rarely requested style of jewelry. A quick flash of Janet’s nipple shield on national television was all it took for piercers to notice a spark in requests for this jewelry style. While this was not a huge trend and was short lived, it is also important noting that the extremely brief appearance of her jewelry on an isolated occasion was enough to initiate a small trend. From a piercers standpoint this instance holds even more relevance as she was wearing a nipple shield from the jewelry manufacturing days of The Gauntlet.
MTV stars did more than just popularize piercing placements and specific jewelry styles. Two female pop stars deserve credit for inspiring a shift to more decorative jewelry. Many celebrities of their time were wearing basic jewelry styles; Lenny Kravitz wore a captive bead ring and simple stud in his paired nostrils, two members of Blink 182 wore captive bead rings in their lip piercings, Dennis Rodman wore oversized captive bead rings in his nostrils, the list could go on and on. However, two of the heavy hitting pop princesses inspired a shift from simplistic jewelry designs to more ornate and flashy pieces.
The first of these two, America’s Sweetheart Britney Spears, often wore a dangle navel curve that was very different from the basic rings or standard curved barbells that other celebrities of the time were sporting. At the same time, Christina Aguilera could be seen wearing large gemmed flowers in both her nostril and labret piercings. Seeing both of these gorgeous women wearing ornate jewelry in their music videos and photoshoots inspired average clients to upgrade their choose to much more elaborate pieces. The increased popularity of these fancier jewelry options also became a contributing factor to the increased demand for higher quality jewelry. As is still the case now, there were few suppliers of quality made jewelry. These same companies were the pioneers of the first “fancy” designs we saw over a decade ago.
Christina Aguilera is the other celebrity of the late ’90s who inspired a movement for larger, bolder more individualized jewelry styles and sizes. The flowers in her nostril and labret piercings showed women that they could wear something big and flashy, yet still be sexy and feminine. At the same time, Tupac was known for wearing a fairly large gem in his nostril piercing. The rising popularity of wearing larger and more decorative jewelry allowed piercers to stock a wider variety of options and increase the amount of aftermarket sales. As of more recent years this has become increasingly important.
MTV icons are not the only celebrities to be credited with setting pre-social media piercing trends. We can also thank the movie industry for some of the trends we have seen in regards to piercing and jewelry. One of the most notable was the increase in popularity of nostril rings due to female characters in two major motion pictures that came out within a year of each other; Fairuza Balk’s character in The Craft and Stacey Dash’s character in Clueless. Many of us can clearly recall laughing at the scene where Stacey Dash’s character has a wild idea to get her nostril pierced with a ring, which did not fare well with her allergies.
Celebrities still continue to inspire piercing trends, some of the more recent being requests include “spider bites” inspired by Lil Wayne’s double side lip piercings. As well as an increase in tragus piercings, which some piercers credit Scarlett Johansson with. There has been a noticeable increase in double helix piercings, as many clients holdup their smartphone to display a photo of Miley Cyrus revealing two rings at the top of her ear.
Since the inception of social media, piercers are seeing more trends being inspired by clever marketing and the large scale circulation of quality images. The triple forward helix trend, for example, was largely inspired by a black and white closeup photo of an unidentified ear. The timing of this previously uncredited photo aligned with the surge in popularity of Pinterest, allowed the photo to circulate, being “pinned” thousands of times.
Currently, the single most prominent media inspired piercing trend, and possibly the biggest piercing trend in piercing history, is the septum piercing, which were seldom performed in past years, by comparison to commonly performed piercings such as a nostril or navel. Septum piercings have become extremely popular over the past year or two. While Scarlett Johansson was the first A-list celebrity to be seen with a septum piercing, the initial response from the general public was less than positive. Despite this initial response, septum piercings have become the newest piercing trend almost overnight. Lady Gaga released a video of her septum being pierced, then a later video of what looks like her septum piercing being stretched. Countless models and fashion icons are being seen sporting septum jewelry. Rhianna and FKA Twigs have been photographed wearing ornate gold septum pieces. The New York Times online featured a blog titled “This Holiday, Don’t Hide the Piercings From Grandma“, where the author discusses her family’s experience with her daughter’s septum piercing. Elle.com featured a fashion blog titled “This Septum Piercing is for You, Mom”.
If we did not already acknowledge the media’s power in shaping the future of our industry, we cannot deny it now. We know that the media, and in particular social media, is the largest current driver of piercing trends by the dramatic influx of septum piercings and the daily occurance of clients who whip out their phone to show us photos of what they want. Hopefully, the next step for us as an industry is to figure out how to influence trends through our interactions with these various forms of media. If the piercing industry can discover a way to deliberately and intentionally influence the media, we could have the ability to create the next piercing and jewelry trends!
