This Jewelry Designer Makes Pasta Necklaces Look Insanely Cool ~ Titina Penzini

Photo: Bogdan Teslar Kwiatkowski / Courtesy of Anna Pierce

Despite what your mother may have told you when you were four years old, pasta necklaces are not always beautiful. They make noise when you move, they crack easily, and they can smell like stale dough. Yet despite the genre’s preschool association, New York–based designer Anna Pierce sees something different about strands of farfalle and bow tie noodles. “The owner of a pasta necklace needs to take care of it,” she explains. “This speaks to the preciousness of jewelry as a medium, without the preciousness of the actual material.” Pasta is just one of the unexpected materials Pierce works with. Others include latex, deadstock fabric, and industrial grommets. As she notes, “materials inherently dictate my designs, as I’m interested in creating value with unconventional items that are often ephemeral, unlike the typical precious metal and gemstone.”

Photo: Jimmy Tagliaferri / Courtesy of Anna Pierce

Pierce graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2015 and began collaborating with her fashion designer friend Rafaella Hanley of Lou Dallas, whose collections Pierce has made jewelry for for three seasons and counting. Aside from her signature sculptural pasta necklaces, Pierce has also created a series of corsets, chokers, and bracelets inspired by what she describes as “a fictitious image of a doctor diagnosing a Victorian woman with a syndrome caused by excessive luxury.” All are sold exclusively at Planet X in lower Manhattan. “Each piece is named after Victorian slang words all beginning with the letter L—lemoncholy, lallygagging, lapwing, and lolliker—as I find this one of the more seductive sounds of the alphabet,” Pierce explains. Her process and aesthetic may skew childlike and playful, but there’s nothing infantile about her work. In fact, her eccentric pasta necklaces are adornments that any chic grown-up can wear with pride.