Piercing Parlor Rush Heats Up the Jewelry Industry
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Call it the piercing parlor wars. The heat is on in the rapidly growing piercing jewelry category, which has been teeming with new and revitalized players since COVID-19 restrictions began lifting last summer.
It was then that shoppers flooded the booking systems of luxury piercing and jewelry companies like Maria Tash and Love Adorned, looking to mark the moment of newfound freedom with a new spot for jewelry. While previously a counterculture faction of the jewelry industry, piercings now see untold demand.
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Maria Tash is the most global and original of the luxury piercing parlor jewelers, established by its namesake founder in 1993 and now with eight stores around the world and more to come. Love Adorned in Manhattan’s NoLIta neighborhood does not have Tash’s global reach, but was equally instrumental in kicking off the piercings-as-fashion trend that has snowballed nationwide.
But with frenzied lines snaking around the block of these stores, other jewelers saw the opportunity in sticking shoppers’ earlobes with bits and bobs of precious metals and stones.
Pamela Love, who in 2019 took on a majority ownership investment that financed the launch of her piercing jewelry line, says those styles now make up about half of her business. In April she launched a pierce-at-home program where piercing artists travel to shoppers’ homes across Manhattan and Brooklyn to pierce them at their own kitchen table.
The following month, Alysa Teichman, whose parents founded the Texas-based jewelry boutique Ylang23, set up a new retail concept called Wildlike. A jewelry store and piercing parlor that sells its own line of jewelry in addition to styles by Tash, Love and other piercing brands, Wildlike expected to expand nationwide over the coming years.
“It is such an exciting space — it transcends any kind of demographic. It’s not just women, it’s not just people of a certain age. It’s not just super-edgy people. We’ve had people bring their teenager for a second hole on their 16th birthday and had 80-year-old-plus women come in to get their ears pierced. It’s been such a source of energy in our store and I’m enterprising so I had this idea to spin off the piercing concept and build it out. I think the market is huge,” said Teichman.
In the meantime, one pre-COVID-19 piercing retailer is already in national expansion mode. Studs, a piercing parlor concept aimed at Gen Z, was founded in 2020 just before pandemic-related lockdowns began by Anna Harman and Lisa Bubbers and is said to count Gwyneth Paltrow among its high-profile investors. The company, which started out 2021 with two locations, is expected to have around 10 stores across the U.S. before this year’s end.
“Piercing is a thing people really want to do and when they’ve been cooped up for many months they want to get out and do something. You can’t virtually pierce your ears,” said Harman, Studs’ chief executive officer and cofounder.
And now upping the ante is shopping mall stalwart Piercing Pagoda, which last month — recognizing widespread growth in a space that it originated — relaunched itself as a youth-focused brand called “Banter by Piercing Pagoda.” The company’s strategy includes a revitalized look for its mall kiosks, new, on-trend merchandise and socially conscious marketing campaigns.
Currently with 135 stores, Banter parent company Signet Jewelers is planning another 100 units by the end of 2022. Some will have smart mirrors that allow for virtual try-on opportunities, as well as private piercing booths that break with the long-rooted mall tradition of being pierced in plain view.
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