When Zendaya stepped out at a London photocall for Christopher Nolan's blockbuster The Odyssey, the fashion world expected high drama. She’s spent years setting red carpets on fire alongside her stylist Law Roach. But nobody predicted a pair of gold earrings would ignite an international dispute over colonial plunder, black-market antiquities, and geopolitical posturing.
The controversy centers on two gold disc medallions dating back roughly 3,000 years to the 7th century BCE. Sourced from the ancient Ziwiye hoard in northwestern Iran, the artifacts were remounted into wearable earrings using 18-karat gold and diamonds by London jeweler Glenn Spiro and acquired by dealer Barron London. While intended to pay homage to ancient craftsmanship, the decision to turn thousands of years of human history into a red-carpet accessory struck a deep nerve.
Critics weren't just picking at styling choices. Archaeologists, historians, and activists quickly pointed out that wearing looted, unprovenanced heritage isn't fashion. It’s commodification.
The Dark History of the Ziwiye Hoard
To understand why people are angry, you have to look past the red carpet and trace where these objects came from.
The gold discs belong to the Ziwiye hoard, a massive collection of gold, silver, and bronze items uncovered near Ziwiyeh Castle in Iranian Kurdistan in 1947. Shepherds accidentally stumbled upon the cache. What followed wasn't a careful, scientific excavation. It was immediate, chaotic looting.
"Scholars have long debated which pieces genuinely came from the site and which were later attributed to it because they resembled the artistic style," noted historian Carla Ionescu regarding the sketchy paper trails surrounding Ziwiye antiquities.
Pieces were smuggled out of Iran, broken apart, and sold on the global black market. Today, items linked to Ziwiye are scattered across elite institutions like the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, alongside secretive private collections.
The exact path these specific medallions took from an Iranian fortress to a London luxury jeweler remains completely undocumented. When private collectors drill into ancient gold, mount it with modern diamonds, and hand it to a celebrity, they essentially erase its archaeological context. The history gets sanitized into a simple selling point: "ancient".
Why the Timing Made Everything Worse
Fashion doesn't happen in a vacuum. The backlash escalated rapidly because of the geopolitical backdrop.
Zendaya wore ancient Middle Eastern artifacts while promoting an American film based on Greek epic poetry. All of this happened against a backdrop of escalating conflict involving the United States, Israel, and Iran—conflicts that threaten the actual physical preservation of historical sites across the region.
Iranian-born art historian Prof. Sussan Babaie didn't hold back when speaking about the incident. She pointed out how infuriating it feels to watch Western press tours glamorize Iranian heritage for a photo-op while military actions jeopardize the region's cultural landscape.
It flattens deep, living human history into a trendy prop.
High Fashion Has an Antiquities Problem
Zendaya isn't the first star caught up in this kind of storm, and she won't be the last. The red carpet has an ongoing addiction to "historic" jewelry that often turns out to be ethically radioactive.
- Margot Robbie raised eyebrows by wearing the Mughal-era Taj Mahal diamond on a press tour.
- Emma Chamberlain wore a Cartier necklace to the 2022 Met Gala that originally belonged to the Maharaja of Patiala—a piece with a deeply painful colonial history surrounding its disappearance.
- Kim Kardashian famously wore Marilyn Monroe’s iconic dress to the Met Gala, sparking debates about how modern elites handle delicate historical artifacts.
Barron London defended loaning the earrings to Zendaya, claiming the intention was to "celebrate the remarkable artistry of ancient Persian goldsmiths" without any commercial motive. They insisted the medallions were mounted using noninvasive claws to prevent damage.
That defense completely misses the point. When you turn undocumented, likely-looted antiquities into red-carpet accessories, you legitimize a luxury market that incentivizes the destruction of archaeological sites. You turn cultural heritage into class signaling.
What Needs to Change in Red Carpet Styling
Hollywood stylists and luxury brands can't keep operating with total disregard for provenance. Celebrating history is great, but there's a clear line between honoring craftsmanship and parade-testing unprovenanced antiquities.
If celebrity teams want to draw inspiration from ancient civilizations without fueling ethical disasters, the path forward is straightforward:
- Demand full provenance verification. If a jeweler cannot provide clear, legal export documentation predating international treaties, don't wear it.
- Choose master reproductions over original relics. Replicas allow stylists to capture the aesthetic while giving modern artisans work, all without risking actual ancient artifacts.
- Partner with source country institutions. If you want to showcase Iranian, African, or Indigenous heritage, work directly with cultural representatives and creators from those traditions rather than buying through private Western dealers.
The debate over Zendaya's earrings isn't just internet outrage over a bad outfit choice. It's a overdue reckoning for an industry that has treated world history as its personal wardrobe for far too long.
