Icarus was no more than a boy when he and his father, Daedalus, were imprisoned in the king’s tower on the island of Crete. The formative years of Icarus’s life were spent in a single room, watching his father work for the king who imprisoned them, while catching bird feathers from the window that would one day lead to their freedom. When the time came and enough feathers had been gathered, Daedalus, a master craftsman and brilliant inventor, used wax to apply the feathers to wooden arms fashioned from bed posts. Strapping the makeshift wings to Icarus and himself, Daedalus explained to his son that they must not fly too low, for the seawater spray could loosen the feathers, nor too high, lest the heat of the sun melt the wax. With a prayer to the gods, the two leapt from the window of the high tower, and flew. Like all things that glow bright and hot, Icarus burnt out too quickly. Drunk on freedom that he had never known, the young man bathed in the deep blue of the open sea and sky. Laughing and swooping, Icarus paid no heed to the shouts of warning from his father. Fevered with ecstasy, Icarus flew up and up, further still into the great blue sky, the sun warming his goose-prickled skin. He never noticed the first feather loosen and fall. But when he shed two more feathers, then four, then ten, it was too late and Icarus was falling, his wings useless as he plunged into the sea. The Icarus gold stud earrings are inspired by Icarus's mythical flight. We began with imagining a pair of gold discs laid in the hot Greek sun, absorbing its warmth and becoming a molten, syrupy gold stud. Each stud is roughly .4 inches or 1cm in diameter, making them perfect for everyday wear. They also complement the organic molten look of our signature Mythology pendants. These studs are cast using the ancient lost wax method, then hand polished by our master goldsmiths.
