The Queen of Hoops

Dinny Hall has had a long love affair with hoop earrings. From her first hoops – enormous and “almost unwearable” – to the classic Dinny Hoops, the jeweller has adorned the ears of the great and good for 35 years.  

“I can tell you some things about hoops. They used to rather presumptuously call me the Queen of Hoops. But there was a time when not many other people were doing them. If you consider that some of these hoops like the Dinny Hoop, was designed in 1996. And in 1996, it was grunge, it was a time of Brit Art etc. But we had hoops of every size made out of all different materials even then.

“Because I just love hoops, I wear them all the time, big ones, small ones… and now they're everywhere. That's just the way it is.”

The British Queen of Hoops has always designed hoops, something that started with “fashion” hoops back in 1985 and has evolved to a whole range of earrings in as many sizes as you can think of, and as many materials as are available.

“The first bamboo hoop I did was actually before seeing those massive hoops, and it was based on my mum's Gucci handbag handles in the 1970s. She had a handbag that I always wanted when I was a young teen. I wanted that handbag and then I got one. I managed to get one second hand one and then I wanted to design some hoops that went with it. I checked out the fact that Gucci did do bamboo hoops and I thought, I'm not going to do them like the Gucci bamboo hoops, because I didn't want to rip them off, because that's Gucci. So I redesigned them, and I think the first bamboo hoop was when we opened the shop, in 1992. And we still do them. Actually, one of our best-selling items is a micro hoop from that collection, that used to be enormous and then has gone down in size, in solid gold.”

While her inspiration for new hoops comes from all over, it all started with London, and Notting Hill.

“Notting Hill is probably one of the most integrated areas of London, because it was a very fashionable place. I always had loads of friends, and their sisters would be wearing huge triple hoops like in the 90s, massive things. I used to say: I love those. I love those trends. 

“But even then, I was trying not to appropriate. But no one owns hoops at the end of the day.”

Dinny says “women of all ages buy my hoops”, but not everyone buys the same ones.

“We try to think, well, what if you're wearing your first hoops, which ones are they when you're 16, and how old should you be when you wear your first hoops? And how big should they be? And often 13-year-olds want them enormous.”

With hoops galore, Dinny Hall “could probably fill a row and give you a different hoop every time”.

When visiting her Notting Hill shop, the Finematter team was given a lowdown on some of the jeweller’s hoop earrings.

“Let's just look at an unusual hoop. This one here is part of the Sunbeam collection, which is a collection that I did for the National Portrait Gallery, about five or six years ago. It's all based around the Pre-Raphaelite, the muses of the Pre-Raphaelites and one of the things I noticed is that there were great halos and sunbeams within the painting, so it was particularly hard to do a hoop.

“It still fulfils the role of being a hoop, but it's obviously lots of the sunbeams emanating out. And I think we did several of them, but this slightly bigger, more elaborate and perhaps a little bit more ornate than I usually do, was the one that people really loved. So that goes in the in the hoop collection.”

While the sunbeam hoop is “unusual”, some of the Dinny Hall hoops are more classic.

“The best-selling hoop of all time is so simple. It's flat, slightly curved on the outside, and then it goes into a spine at the bottom, so it's heavier at the bottom and then it tapers towards the top and you can sleep in it and wear it every day.

“It's really, really comfortable. It's got a great weight. And I think that's probably the most successful everyday earring that we've designed. That probably goes back eight years, and it comes from the Dinny Hoop. It's the same cross section. It's just that this has a post fitting and you have to take it off when you sleep.

“So in effect, they're the same hoop scaled differently. We'll do that quite a lot. And I think that's very much the essence of what we do hoop-wise. We get the scale and the balance right. No matter what size, they're comfortable.”

With so many different hoops to talk through, Dinny Hall highlights some of the ones that stand out.

“There’s the bamboo. There's the large bamboo, small bamboo.

“We have the Twist collection, where everything is twisted.

“And some from a much newer collection, a contemporary collection, called Thalassa. The metal is faceted and in order to keep this lovely way the light hits it, they have to be hand polished. These are currently a best seller, they've been a real hit, so I'm really pleased with those. When you move it around, there are sort of flat surfaces. And obviously there are other designers that do different surfaces, but this is really finely polished, so you don't just chuck it in a barrel and just make it in wax… it's slightly more than that. 

“And so I think when people really look at things very closely, they can see wow, that's special. And these I think these are our most special hoops at the moment for us.”

While Dinny loves designing hoops, she also wears them every day. “I wear a rounded one. I don't know why. It's not rocket science, but it's just comfortable and I like it.

“But I think my favourite hoop at the moment is the Thalassa hoop. So if I go out, I'll wear that one together with a smaller version. I’ll do a double hoop; I like double hoops."