National Silly Earring Day – April 13, 2025

History of National Silly Earring Day

Earrings are not only made using valuable metals and diamonds but also fabric, polymer clay, and resin. There are no documented or hypothetical accounts of the first earrings. We know that earrings and piercings are quite ancient practices, as in biblical times. Guys generally wore them. In the city of Persepolis, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire (550 B.C. — 330 B.C.), archeological evidence in the form of wall carvings suggests that Persian men wore earrings.

Earrings were in and out of style in Europe throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Courtiers sometimes wore them as a sign of affluence. From the 17th through the 19th century, earring styles changed with women’s fashion. When Victorian morals governed England in the late 19th century, piercing was considered one of the most impolite practices.

Ear piercing was not popular in the U.S. until the 1950s. Though many deemed earrings vulgar in the first part of the twentieth century, the clip-on type was more acceptable. Ear piercing’s enormous appeal has created a large market for earrings, contributing to the comparative variety of design. In the 1970s, multiple piercings in one or both ears became popular in mainstream America. Initially, ladies would wear the second set of earrings in their earlobes, while men would double-pierce a single earlobe. In the 1980s, British men began to pierce both ears.