Nita Naldi’s pearl creations – la suite

Nita Naldi with multi strand pearl adornments (Pic 1)

Let’s continue with our journey of exploration with Nita Naldi and her amazing creativity with pearl jewellery. The 1920′s sensation in silent films and the then ultimate representation of the image ‘femme’ fatale expresses herself madly and deeply through her way of wearing pearls. She is never conventional. Pearls as simple necklace or earrings seemed to be just too boring for her. She would wear pearls in ways like no one else would, and leaves with her audience and impression like no other actor would.

Nita Naldi poses with long pearl ropes (Pic 2)

In this classic photo of hers (Pic 1), she combines a multi strand rich pearl necklace with a multi strand head band, with her hair fully wrapped up so the full focus of the look is on pearls and her outstanding facial features. This look is unusual yet still discrete, breaking the rules just a little, leaving enough for one to pounder.

In the post card pose in Pic 2, Nita uses a kind of ‘free style’ creativity with her signature super long pearl ropes. She wraps herself around the neck, around the wrist, and in her hair all the way across, with a creative colourful dress so that the colours contrast with the pure white of the pearls, bringing out this expression of free spirit combined with a love for beauty. She looked like a lady ran away from her royal family roots who wants to create a life of her own, defiant of tradition yet fully aware of how to capture her suitors.

Nita Naldi 1925 Pose (Pic 3)

Moving on  to this probably her most famous picture, Nita uses gorgeous long pearl ropes as a free style necklace, but the most impressive is how she entangles a double strand pearl rope in her hair and around her throat. There’s a trace of desperate beauty in this creation. She doesn’t just ‘wear’ pearls, she entangles and struggles with them, almost choking herself with this beautiful pearl rope. Love and hate, possession and obsession, all seem to come into one pose, one frame, and become eternal, interblend with that unforgettable look of hers in this picture that was full of hope and despair, freeze in time.

Nita Naldi’s free style pearl creation certainly isn’t for everyone. It is not convention, not high street, not styles that others would happily follow. However her styles are those who make statement in her time, of breaking away from traditions and rules to fully express oneself, no matter how daring it might seem. Nita Naldi was a feminist who also happened to be a woman that countless men would dream to be with and her expressions of freedom has greatly influenced women of her time.