Queer Clothing: Pearls
So, where does one begin talking about the crossover between queer clothing and regular clothing? The veil between the two is a bit vague sometimes, so to begin, I thought something as mainstream and saturated as pearls would be a great place to start. First, a brief bit of history on the origin of the pearl itself.
The pearl, of course, dates all the way back to when the first mussel and first oyster found themselves putzing around the bed of the sea. These two mollusks make our favorite shiny accessories by secreting calcium carbonate ever so slowly as a defense mechanism when they feel like something is invading their shells. Not much is different between the material of the pearl and their shell, but this being the case one must ask ‘why isn’t the shell worth more?’ In the sense of fashion, the pearl rather than the shell, dates all the way back to 420 B.C. They are seen being worn by Persian princesses around this time having been buried with them in the sarcophagus. Persia originated some of the earliest sources of oyster beds where these pearls were harvested from. Chinese and Roman royalty have also been recorded wearing pearls. Between the 15th and 16th century, which ushered in the Pearl Age, demand for the pearl skyrocketed when their discovery was made in the South and Central American neighboring seas. This took much of the novelty away from the pearl which was previously considered a rare feminine symbol of luxury and high social status, as well as purity and sophistication.
Pearls today are in higher demand than ever. Since their referential exposure in mainstream media from Harry Styles to Audrey Hepburn, anyone with access to the internet has thought about getting themselves a strand of pearls just like their favorite star. Since naturally occurring pearls take too long to grow alongside modern demand, Japanese pearl farmers cultivated techniques that stimulate the oysters to grow them more often than if they were living day to day.
Okay, okay, so what does this have to do with pearls being a gay identifier? For this train of thought, another blip of history is important to recognize. The whole essence of the fight for queer rights and equality is freedom, the freedom to love who you want without reprimand, the freedom to express whatever gender you like, the freedom to be who you are on the inside, on the outside. In this, queer people as a form of protest looked at the heteronormative constant of masculine and feminine and decided to flip that. In the case of gay men especially, the reconnection to their feminine side that society deemed queer in a derogatory way looked like dawning feminine accessories. Insert the strand of pearls. As a way to subvert a traditionally feminine accessory that symbolizes purity and sophistication, a gay man will wear a strand of pearls to symbolize their freedom; the same freedom that transcends such things as purity and sophistication in the pursuit of liberation, which was often a grizzly and violent pursuit.
Pearls also exist in a category of coded symbols used to identify someone looking for a sexual encounter. In a more lewd sense, pearls being worn by a gay man can show someone with a trained eye where they would like their counterpart to climax. To those wearing pearls as means to solicit a sexual encounter, reclaiming and expressing a feminine side of themselves may not be their foremost intention with the accessory. Rather, this accessory acts as a sort of sock on the door, cracked ever so slightly for the possibility of a passionate endeavor stepping in.
At this point, you may be asking yourself, ‘well why do so many straight men wear pearls and even paint their nails now?’ We are rounding a social corner where the same people who have built and enforced the social schemas keeping queer people under, now wonder if connecting with their inner feminine will fulfill them in ways they previously deemed unacceptable. The inspiration they see in such a powerful freedom is shaking up the confines placed around them. Right on trend as well, as things deemed cool by queer communities often fall victim to the case of ‘I saw someone else doing it and thought it looked cool’, without knowing about how it came to be. But this is what queer people fought for and continue to fight for; everyone having the right to express themselves no matter what.