Back Jewelry Is the Latest Fashion-Forward Statement

“The back is such a beautiful, wide canvas, so photographically it looks very arresting,” says Lucy Delius, founder of the fine-jewelry brand of the same name. “It has this subtle sexiness to it. The front — and if it’s busty — gives a different vibe.”

This is why the designer styles pieces such as her Medusa Double Diamond necklace on a model’s back in her marketing images, rather than the more traditional way. She is not unusual in making this choice; many brands are doing the same with their jewelry.

Model Abby Champion wears a lariat with an approximately 16-carat turquoise drop down her back in the eye-catching campaign imagery for the Bird on a Rock by Tiffany collection — Tiffany & Co.’s recent reimagining of the motif that designer Jean Schlumberger unveiled in 1965. Boucheron has showcased the white-gold and pavé-diamond arrow brooches from its new Flèche collection by pinning them on the back of a model’s clothing. Another Flèche photograph features a model with a pendant necklace on her back and a brooch in her hair. Van Cleef & Arpels, Louis Vuitton and Chaumet have all shown gold and diamond pendants on models’ backs this year.

Delius thinks social media is part of the reason people are styling jewelry on the back, as there’s a need to catch users’ attention as they scroll. But more than that, she believes the approach is about “doing something unexpected” and showing a different way of wearing fine jewelry.

“It’s an extra step in making a piece more versatile and therefore more wearable,” she comments.

Retrospectives and red carpets

For Pomellato, “styling a necklace on a woman’s back is a gesture of anti-conformism that the brand has expressed on many occasions in the past,” says creative director Vincenzo Castaldo. This came through in the advertising campaign images the Italian house displayed at its “Art & Jewelry” retrospective exhibition in Shanghai last year.

The positioning of jewelry on the back “is a creative suggestion that offers a different point of view, perhaps with a special outfit,” Castaldo explains. “Then, of course, it is up to the woman, our customer, to interpret the jewels according to her own personality and mood.”

The back has been a recent focus for jewelry on the red carpet, where stars need to shine from every angle in the spotlight of global media. Singer Sabrina Carpenter wore a custom Chopard pendant necklace — featuring a brilliant-cut, 50-carat, D-flawless diamond — with a backless dress to this year’s Grammy Awards. Actor Margaret Qualley accessorized her own backless dress for the Oscars with the white-gold and diamond Motif Russe necklace from Le Paris Russe de Chanel high-jewelry collection.

A daring way to decorate

But is this way of wearing jewels filtering down from brand photo shoots and celebrity dressing?

While it is not something Delius is seeing for everyday wear, she has noticed a few customers embracing the niche trend for event dressing. At a recent trunk show in New York, a client bought the British brand’s 14-karat-gold Siren necklace and diamond Pear Pocket Watch clip pendant after trying them with a Bottega Veneta scarf top. Wearing scarves as tops is another trend she’s observed; it creates an “open canvas at the back,” she says. “It’s definitely a bolder client who’s [accessorizing] that.”

Fashion could drive more people to wear necklaces down their backs. “If more designers are creating pieces that are backless, then naturally there’s a move to decorate that part of the body that is on display,” says Delius, whose US stockists include designer jewelry retailer Etc… in Birmingham, Alabama, and Aspen, Colorado. She advises people who do adorn their backs to pick a piece with a certain amount of weight to any drop. “You have to make sure it’s not something that’s going to get caught or tangled.”

More than face value

Artist jeweler Ute Decker pinned one of her own sculptural brooch designs, Rolling Waves in Moonlight – Tiny, onto the back of a favorite vest about four years ago. It has since become her signature look. She wears the piece between her shoulder blades, which protects it when she leans against a chair. Actor Zendaya wore a brooch in a similar position on her jacket at this year’s Met Gala: a white-gold Bulgari Serpenti piece with two buff-top emeralds and pavé-set diamonds.

Decker’s placement is a critique of “immediate judgement” and how many people have “definite answers” after looking at one perspective, she says. “In today’s hectic world, we’ve all got one second to grab somebody’s attention on social media. This [placement] is, in a way, an invitation to be surprised by looking longer and deeper…not just at the face value at the front, but to actually look closer from different perspectives. The back is one of those perspectives…. It violates that expectation of immediacy.”

Themes of Decker’s work — which London gallery Elisabetta Cipriani Wearable Art will be displaying at Florida’s Design Miami fair from December 2 to 7 — include discovery and connection. While normally the wearer gets pleasure from a jewel, she can’t see the brooch on her back, the artist explains. Instead, it is a conversation starter, “hopefully putting a smile on other people that ripples through their day.”

Main image: White-gold and diamond jewelry from Boucheron’s Flèche collection, with brooches styled on the back. (Boucheron)