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New Yorkers Are Accessorizing Their Teeth

A look at the wild, unregulated world of putting gems on your teeth

New Yorkers Are Accessorizing Their Teeth
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While sitting across from a friend, I noticed the light catching a tooth. Upon closer inspection, I realized there was a gem on their canine in the shape of a star. I was instantly drawn in, watching as their smile became an accessory. 

Adorning teeth with jewelry has a long history. “Rich Etruscan women wore what we would now think of as grills. Some affluent women had their front teeth removed and were fitted with a gold band appliance (much like a dental bridge) for adornment that held a decorative gold tooth,” a blogger at a dentist’s office in Scottsdale, Arizona writes. “The gems were worn as a statement that they were responsible for life-giving rains, fertile crops and ensuring their people were fed and prosperous,” goes a different version of this story, which comes from the website of a dental practice in New Jersey. The Berlin fashion website Highsnobiety claims that someone named Eddie Plein started making grills in his Brooklyn apartment and then starting selling them to rappers like Big Daddy Kane, Just-Ice, and Flava Flav out of his pawn shop in Queens. 

This story continues: 630 more words

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Top image taken by Grace McNally.

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