Victorian Ear Piercing: Fashion, Mourning and Decline
Most of what floats around about Victorian piercing is either exaggerated or made up. The real story is quieter, better documented, and has a straight line to why ear piercing had to be reintroduced to Western culture in the twentieth century.
Over Queen Victoria's sixty-three-year reign, ear piercing went from completely ordinary to basically obsolete. Here's how that happened.
1837: Pierced Ears at Court
When Victoria took the throne in 1837, pierced ears were no big deal. An engraving of her 1840 wedding to Prince Albert shows her wearing gold ear drops — the monarch herself, at the most photographed event of the era, in pierced earrings.
Piercing wasn't a statement. It was just how earrings were worn, and had been for centuries. The Kent Delord House Museum's collection of nineteenth-century earrings is almost entirely pieces made for pierced ears, and period photographs show ordinary American women in "ear drops" right through the century.
What did change was visibility. Earrings faded early in the reign not because piercing was frowned on, but because hairstyles covered the ears. When updos came back around mid-century, the earrings came straight back with them.
The Sleeping Earring
One Victorian detail is worth stopping on, because the problem it solves is the exact same one people still have today.
Fashionable women wore small diamond studs to bed — dormeuses, from the French for "sleeper." Their only job was practical: to stop the piercing from closing overnight.
It's a tiny detail, but it tells you two things at once. Victorians already knew that piercings shrink when left empty, and they had a purpose-made product for it more than a century before anyone used the word "retainer." The problem is old. Only the vocabulary is new.
1861: Everything Turns Black
Prince Albert died in 1861. Victoria never really recovered, and spent much of the rest of her reign in mourning — which, because she was the monarch, became a fashion the entire country followed.
Mourning dress required black, and jewelry followed. The materials that defined the second half of the era:
- Jet — fossilized wood, light, warm to the touch, carved rather than cut. Whitby in Yorkshire built a whole industry on it.
- French jet — black glass, the cheaper imitation, heavier and colder than the real thing.
- Onyx — including bull's-eye onyx, a banded variety that was a particular favorite.
- Dark stones — garnet, amethyst, agate.
Styles turned heavy and somber. Earrings got longer and larger. It's the look most people picture when they hear "Victorian jewelry," and it exists because one woman was grieving in public for forty years.
The metal underneath was usually gold, and the karat conventions of the period are the direct ancestors of today's — we cover what those numbers actually mean in 14K vs 18K gold.
The Screw Back Changes Everything
Here's the real pivot, and it's a technical one rather than a cultural one.
During the same period, post earrings with screw backs appeared and started replacing the traditional hook. That mattered more than it sounds. A screw-back could be tightened onto an unpierced lobe.
For the first time, you could wear earrings without being pierced.
Once that option existed, the math changed. Piercing was permanent, took time to heal, and carried a real risk of infection at a moment when antiseptic practice was still new. If a screw fitting gave you the same look, why pierce at all?
Late Victorian: The Decline
By the end of Victoria's reign and into the Edwardian period, ear piercing was falling out of fashion in Western societies — especially among the upper classes, where looking modest mattered most.
A few things pushed in the same direction. Screw backs and later clip-ons made piercing unnecessary. Attitudes increasingly treated body modification as improper. And fashion drifted toward tiaras and hair ornaments, so earrings simply became less central than they had been.
This is the part that usually gets lost. Ear piercing didn't survive continuously into the modern era in the West — it lapsed. Clip-ons dominated for decades. The mid-twentieth-century return of ear piercing was a revival, not a continuation, and it's why piercing guns found such a big market when they arrived. That story is in the history of the piercing gun.
A Word on Victorian Piercing Lore
The Victorian era attracts more invented piercing history than any other period, and it's worth knowing why before you believe everything you read about it.
The best-known claims travel through a chain of secondary sources — a 1970s cultural history citing an earlier work, citing a small batch of magazine correspondence from the 1890s — and historians who've followed that chain all the way back have serious doubts about whether the original letters describe a real fashion at all.
Separately, a lot of what circulates as ancient piercing history was fabricated outright in the 1970s as marketing. We take that apart in piercing superstitions and folklore, and the professional history is in our history of the piercing industry.
What is well documented is the ordinary story: portraits, museum collections, newspaper ads and photographs showing that ear piercing was common through most of the nineteenth century and declining by the end of it. Less dramatic. Considerably more reliable.
What Carried Forward
Three Victorian things are still with you.
The lobe as default. Victorian ear piercing meant lobes, essentially without exception. Cartilage piercing as a mainstream practice is a late-twentieth-century development.
Gold as the standard material. Solid gold was the material of the period for the same reason it remains an accepted choice today — it doesn't corrode and it's well tolerated. The full arc is in our history of body jewelry materials.
The sleeping earring. The dormeuse and the modern retainer solve exactly the same problem in exactly the same way.
What the Victorians didn't have was any real concept of biocompatibility, sterile technique, or material standards. Gold worked because it happened to be inert, not because anyone had tested it. That understanding took another century.
For a healing piercing today the accepted materials are implant-grade titanium, solid 14K or 18K gold, or niobium. Browse our 14K gold and implant-grade titanium ranges, or plain hinged hoops for something closer to the classic drop.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Victorians pierce their ears?
Yes — commonly, for most of the era. Queen Victoria is shown wearing pierced ear drops in an engraving of her 1840 wedding, museum collections of nineteenth-century earrings are largely made for pierced ears, and period photographs show ordinary women wearing them. Piercing only started declining toward the end of her reign.
Why did ear piercing go out of fashion?
Several reasons at once. Screw-back and later clip-on fittings meant you could wear earrings without piercing. Attitudes hardened against visible body modification. And fashion shifted toward hair ornaments. By the Edwardian period, piercing was uncommon among the upper classes in the West.
What is a dormeuse earring?
A small stud, often diamond, worn to bed. The French word means "sleeper." The purpose was to keep the piercing from closing overnight — the same job a modern retainer does.
What is Victorian mourning jewelry?
Jewelry in black and dark materials worn during mourning, which became widespread after Prince Albert's death in 1861 and Queen Victoria's decades-long public grief. Jet, French jet, onyx, dark garnet, amethyst and agate were the characteristic materials.
What's the difference between jet and French jet?
Jet is fossilized wood — light, warm to the touch, and carved. French jet is black glass made to imitate it: heavier, colder, and cheaper. Weight and temperature in the hand are the usual tell.
Did Victorians have cartilage piercings?
Essentially no. Victorian ear piercing meant lobes. Cartilage placements like the helix, tragus and conch became mainstream much later, in the late twentieth century.
Are the Victorian body piercing stories true?
Treat them carefully. The most widely repeated claims rest on a thin chain of secondary sources that lead back to a small body of 1890s magazine correspondence that historians have questioned. Separately, a lot of "ancient" piercing history was invented in the 1970s as marketing. The documented Victorian story is about ear piercing.
This article is for general information only and is not medical advice. Historical accounts vary in reliability; where sources conflict we've said so. If you are experiencing irritation, redness or discharge from a piercing, consult a reputable professional piercer or a qualified healthcare provider.