Last week, I picked an earring as part of my Curated series. These type of earrings, called ear jackets are really this year’s biggest jewelry trend. The trend actually started about a year and a half ago, but really began to peak this summer. Delfina Delettrez was one of the first jewelry designers to pick up on this trend and created her now iconic eye earring. Call it copying, call it zeitgeist, the fact remains that that specific design marked the beginning of a totally new chapter in earring anatomy. Even though a lot of ear jackets nowadays do not resemble Delettrez’ surrealistic design in the slightest, that earring showed designers the endless possibilities of an earring with a decorative back. Simply put, the back no longer took a back seat ;-) .

Now I don’t want to conjure up images of a Kentucky waterfall aka a mullet, but these earrings are really business in the front, party in the back ;-) . These front-back earrings are created with adorned backings and let you combine them with every stud possible. There are several known variations: double studs, a stud with a hoop or spikey back or the earring with a stud front and a fan-shaped back curving around the ear lobe. Still, they all have in common that they elevate a normally hidden and boring back to a decorative statement piece. To further enhance costumizing, some have several holes in the backing to allow you to adjust the distance between the earring and ear lobe.

Popular motifs and styles are geometric shapes such as cubes and triangles, tribalesque spikes and more delicate, refined nature inspired motifs. And of course this year’s It jewelry piece, Dior’s “Mise en dior” inspired many pearl adorned ear jackets, if not for the simple fact that pearl jewelry in itself is hot at the moment.

After the ongoing ear cuff trend, which, let’s be honest, is a little bit hipsterized to death, this is really a welcome, new interpretation of the earring.