I, TOO, HAVE ONE: a chaste string of graduated pearls, once my mother’s, that I never wear. I own the requisite pair of pearl studs, which get nowhere near my earlobes because they send me back to the eighth grade, when such accoutrements were considered chic. It’s not just that these classics are out of fashion; it’s that they’re boring—they do nothing for the pearls, and nothing for the wearer.  But pearls still exert an allure, and designers are not about to be bored by them. These designers have been busy deconstructing and reconstructing pearl jewelry and, in the edgy, freewheeling designs they’ve wrought, pearls suddenly seem less like the demure ones worn by the neurotic Vassar grads in “The Group” and more like what the cool girls of British band Savages might don for a rocking show.  I discovered this new breed of pearls at Quiet Storms, a boutique in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Owner Reshma Patel showed me a ring by Milan-based designer Lia Di Gregorio: a wide band of matte gold set with one white pearl—on the inside. Why would anyone wear this, I wondered, slipping it on. And then I didn’t want to take it off—the pearl felt pleasurably smooth nestled against my finger.  Brooke Garber Neidich, owner and creative director of Chicago boutique Sidney Garber—another designer who’s radically transforming the look of pearls—dangles a massive South Sea pearl on a bold choker. A necklace from Jemma Wynne, a New York-based line by Jenny Klatt and Stephanie Wynne Lalin, upends the classic strand by spacing out the jewels so each gets its own little spotlight.  Highlighting the pearl is a priority, said jewelry designer Mizuki Goltz of New York brand Mizuki. “Pearls,” she said, “have a sensuousness that can balance a sometimes-cold modernism.”  That’s the appeal: Pearls are organic, created by a living mollusk. They glow. “Their luster—soft, but deep—is a great contrast with precious metal,” said Tokyo-based designer Hirotaka Inoue. Each of his “futuristic retro” designs showcase a pearl chosen specifically for it. Every pearl is different, said Mr. Inoue, who brings an experienced eye to the business of assessing the nuances.  What, exactly, distinguishes a fine pearl? They come in many natural colors, after all, and less-costly Chinese freshwater pearls are now rivaling more expensive saltwater varieties such as Japanese Akoyas, white South Sea pearls and black Tahitians. But whatever the pearl, it has to have that elusive quality called “orient,” a prismatic rainbow effect of colors moving across the surface, said New York pearl specialist Nan Irwin. “You can glimpse your own image in a good pearl, even if it doesn’t have a mirror-shiny finish,” she said. “Once I’ve scanned a pearl for imperfections, I take off my glasses. In my blurry vision, the quality always comes through.”  In some of the newer settings, pearls can seem tomboyish, even punk, and the wearer often gets a say in how they’re worn. Danish designer Sophie Bille Brahe makes a dangling pearl earring that hangs behind the earlobe with the balance of a Calder mobile. It’s sold as a single, inviting unexpected combinations. “Seventy-five percent of the earrings we sell are designed to be worn individually,” Ms. Patel said. The fact is “women want to wear ear cuffs and crawlers, to get different effects in each piercing.”  Ms. Brahe has her own, admittedly vain reasons for wearing single earrings. “My face, like most people’s, is asymmetrical,” she said. “I find it easier to create balance with different earrings rather than with two identical ones that enhance the facial imperfections in the wrong way.”  The mere idea of an ear cuff would have challenged the decorum of Mary McCarthy’s postgrads, but maybe one of them—Priss? Lakey?—might have broken away from “The Group” and fallen for these unconventional looks.
Single-strand pearls and studs? So old school, say jewelry designers from Mizuki Goltz to Lia DiGregorio who are creating defiantly improper settings for the lustrous orbs.