Anklets and Toe Rings Are All the Phalangeal Fodder
A cocktail ring for your toe, Nicole Richie's rosary anklet tattoo, and more.
We’re in a footaissance and have been for quite some time. Toe shoes. Bare toes. Toe cleavage. It makes sense to adorn those bare feet with jewelry. Anklets. Toe rings. An anklet tattoo? I love a bauble bobbing off a toe or something slinky wrapped around the ankle. Let’s go.
I like an anklet—it’s jewelry that nips at my heel; a tiny kiss at the talus. An anklet says, “Yes, my feet might be busted and bunioned, but I also have this beautiful, slender chain that delicately tickles my Achilles.” Call it lipstick on a pig, but the anklet is a visual tingle: You’re at your snoozy job in a corporate pant, and you cross your legs, the hem slides up, and voila, you reveal that slithering, shining anklet. A bitchy little glimmer eking out of that boring black dress-code-mandated trouser.
This past week, Alexa Chung posted a photo on Instagram of herself in a Chloé babydoll dress and gold peep-toe heels. In the caption, she wrote: ”Fave dress still. I’ve got an anklet on that’s really good but that’s a zoom in.” But no need to zoom in: Chung soon posted to her stories a close-up of the pin-thin gold chain with a droplet of diamonds dribbling down the front nook of her foot. As for my friends, our very own Neverworns producer Simone has been hankering for a tattoo anklet! (You can read her ode here, too.)
There’s a long history behind the jewelry. (This AnOther piece traces the anklet from ancient times to the hippie trails of the '60s and ‘70s.) Search The Met and you’ll find hulking engraved bronze bangles from present-day Sudan dating back to 100 A.D, a 150-year-old pair of tiered gold and bejeweled anklets from India, or a sculpture of the god Ganesha, sitting cross-legged with a tiny anklet. Flip through ‘60s and ‘70s-era Vogues and you’ll see anklets cropping up in the free-love-inflected, bohemian editorials—all under the influence of the hippie trail, which touched down in Southeast and Central Asia, where anklets are tied to tradition. In the ‘90s, when the West dipped its toe into Eastern spirituality, anklets cropped up once again. Look to Jean Paul Gaultier’s “Les Tatouages” spring 1994 collection and you’ll see models with Turkmen bangles clanging at their ankles.
I like the look of the anklet, whether we’re talking ancient Egypt or some rich Talitha Getty knockoff, yes, but ultimately I will always love the trickling feel of it. I have a faded gold that I’ve been wearing for eons—soldered to me whether I’m at the gym in sneakers, barefoot at home, or sauntering around in some nipple heel. I’ll never take it off. After all, there’s a wink to it. The bracelet grazes the ankle bone, that little erogenous protrusion, like a fingertip tracing the top of the wrist! A shiny sliver or an in-the-open flash! If hidden, the anklet can almost be like wearing great lingerie. Only you know it’s there and can appreciate it. Or, it’s like a peekabooing bra strap but for the foot; a smirk on the gam. Call an anklet a tender kiss, or in this case, a tendon kiss.
A stubby note on toe rings, shoes with anklet straps, and an epic anklet tattoo
Toe Rings