SD: How did you work around the issues
of not having standard jewelry at the time
of your learning? Were you involved in
creating some of the jewelry standards
as well?
EA: Fortunately, by the time I began
working at Gauntlet in the ‘80s, Jim
Ward had already developed many of
the jewelry styles we commonly place
in fresh piercings today. We used a lot
of rings back then for almost everything
though, including nipples. They were, by
far, the most popular piercing at the time.
People often assume that we used externally
threaded jewelry back then, but this is not
accurate. The pieces in 14 gauge and thicker
were all internally threaded. We rarely used
any externally threaded jewelry, which came
in 18 and 16 gauge and was available only
in white or yellow gold by custom order. I
do recall that curved bars were not among
the standard styles, though. My own navel
piercing, circa 1985, was performed by
part-time Gauntlet employee Bob Flanagan
of “Supermasochist” fame, and was done
with a straight barbell. I experienced a lot
of healing trouble, but we were working our
way toward the current methods. When navel
piercings became popular in the ‘90s (thanks
to Aerosmith and their video for the song,
“Cryin’”) we always put in rings.
Initially, almost all of Gauntlet’s jewelry was
gold. But during my tenure there, I witnessed
the development and growing popularity of
steel body jewelry. I remember seeing the first
18 gauge 3/8” steel fixed bead ring. It was a
little marvel! We’d only ever stocked little rings
in white and yellow gold. I just had to wear
it, and came up with the idea of a horizontal
eyebrow piercing. It healed surprisingly well
with the little ring, though the jewelry did
Jim was a huge fan of the fixed bead ring,
since his background was in fabricating
gold jewelry, and lost balls were pricey.
I was the one who championed the
versatility of the captive bead ring, and
was involved in acquiring a large array of
captive options for our studio inventory,
and making those more popular than
the less-modifiable counterpart. I also
came up with the captive circular barbell
by adding a bead to the center, which
prevents the ends from unscrewing, and
makes the open style into a complete
ring.
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