Calder-esque Kinetic Installations for Your Ears

From cheerful nursery mobiles at infancy to captivating Alexander Calder installations in adulthood, kinetic sculptures mesmerize at every age. Enchanted by the lithe structures, designers have created earrings in their likeness using colorful enamel, gold-tone metals, and pearls. Australian designer Kym Ellery riffs off solar system models used for classroom instruction with a combination of hand-painted resin orbs resembling planets and gold and silver plated sun and moon shapes. Jamaican-American designer Matthew Harris of Mateo New York mixes 14-karat gold oval, triangle, octagon, and circle forms—finished with poppy red, black, royal blue, and mustard yellow lacquer—for a celestial composition. London-based jeweler Anissa Kermiche channels ready-to-wear designer Rejina Pyo’s affinity for bold proportions and rich color into a collaboration earring using freshwater pearls, red enamel discs, and 18-karat gold plated brass chains and bars. In Serbian designer Roksanda Ilincic’s iteration, a single serpentine wire connects three marbled, blue jasper stones with a baroque pearl. Seattleite Faris Du Graf highlights the beauty of imperfection by pairing uneven pearls with eccentrically shaped, brushed-bronze and silver details. Whether playful and pigmented or organic and elegant, the kinetic delight of each designer’s approach helps make its wearer all the more captivating.