Hollywood's most talked-about stylist, Law Roach, and his celebrity client Zendaya have become unwitting flashpoints in a growing tension between contemporary fashion and historical preservation. During promotional events for a recent film in London, the actor wore a pair of striking gold disc earrings believed to originate from the first millennium BC in ancient Iran—a choice that has exposed deep fractures in how the global fashion industry treats cultural artifacts and raises uncomfortable questions about ownership, consent, and respect for non-Western heritage.
The earrings in question, according to Barron London—a gallery specialising in rare jewels—are Ziwiye gold medallion plaques that have been mounted with diamonds by London-based jeweller Glenn Spiro. While visually stunning and undeniably conversation-starting, the pieces carry a complex and troubling history. The gold discs are thought to have been excavated in the 1940s from outside Ziwiyeh Castle in northwestern Iran as part of what became known collectively as the Ziwiye hoard. Fragments of this archaeological treasure are now scattered across major institutions worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a distribution pattern that itself reflects the colonial-era dynamics that many now wish to redress.
For archaeologists and cultural heritage specialists, the controversy represents far more than a fashion faux pas. Dr Z, an archaeologist and creator, characterised the repurposing of ancient artifacts as a form of "fetishising the past," language that captures the discomfort many scholars feel when priceless historical objects become costume accessories on international red carpets. The concern extends beyond aesthetic questions to economic ones: critics worry that high-profile celebrity endorsement of ancient artifacts could inadvertently stimulate demand within the antiquities black market, creating perverse incentives for looting and trafficking in a region already vulnerable to such exploitation.
Peter Edwell, a professor of history and archaeology at Macquarie University in Sydney, articulated a core scholarly anxiety about pieces like these Ziwiye discs. The material, he explained, is "very problematic in terms of where it came from." The archaeological record surrounding such finds is often murky, particularly for artifacts that emerged from Middle Eastern excavations during the mid-twentieth century, an era when professional standards, documentation, and ethical frameworks around cultural property were far less rigorous than they are today. Edwell bluntly noted that plunder and looting likely account for how many such objects entered private collections and eventually made their way into the hands of gallery owners and jewellers. This historiographical murkiness means that wearing such pieces, however unintentionally, potentially involves wearing the material evidence of colonial extraction.
The timing of Zendaya's choice added another layer of controversy. Several commentators, including archaeologist and producer Annelise Baer based in Los Angeles, observed that the decision to feature distinctly Iranian artifacts as luxury fashion items coincided with heightened geopolitical tensions between the United States and Iran. "Iran is being actively bombed," Baer noted, suggesting that the choice, regardless of intent, risked appearing insensitive given the human stakes of current conflicts. Some observers further speculated that public backlash might have been compounded by racist dynamics that have dogged the casting of Zendaya and her co-star Lupita Nyong'o since the film adaptation's announcement.
The phenomenon of celebrities adorning themselves with ancient artifacts represents a relatively recent trend in red carpet fashion, though the practice builds on older traditions of theme dressing and sartorial one-upmanship among Hollywood's most photographed figures. As red carpet events have evolved into increasingly elaborate theatrical productions where stylists compete for viral moments and critical acclaim, the pressure to source rare, distinctive, and conversation-generating pieces has intensified. Ancient artifacts possess inherent narrative weight and visual impact that contemporary fashion, however innovative, often cannot match. Wearing an object that existed in the court of ancient Iran or in Mughal Delhi positions a contemporary wearer within those historical narratives, as Edwell observed, allowing her to borrow cultural prestige and historical gravitas.
This dynamic became especially evident when Anne Hathaway, Zendaya's co-star, wore jewellery featuring a stone reportedly gifted by Mughal emperor Shah Jahangir to his son Shah Jahan in the seventeenth century. That the man to whom this stone was given went on to commission the Taj Mahal underscores how such pieces carry entire civilisational stories. The decision to wear such talismans to contemporary entertainment events raises philosophical questions about who has the right to narrate historical narratives and whose stories get told through fashion.
Not all voices in the debate have condemned the practice entirely. Annelise Baer, despite her early criticisms, eventually articulated a more nuanced position, arguing that the mainstream visibility generated by celebrity fashion choices can productively illuminate public consciousness about antiquities ownership, provenance, and the ongoing legacies of colonialism and looting. She suggested that the resulting controversy, precisely because it reached millions through social media and entertainment coverage, achieved something that academic papers rarely accomplish: making cultural heritage ethics instantly relevant to general audiences. This silver-lining perspective drew significant social media backlash, prompting Baer to disable comments on her posts—itself a telling commentary on how contentious these questions remain.
For Southeast Asian readers, the Zendaya controversy carries particular resonance. The region has experienced its own fraught history with cultural artifact extraction, from colonial-era plundering of temple treasures to more recent concerns about illegal antiquities trafficking. The incident serves as a case study in how global entertainment industries can either perpetuate or challenge the power imbalances embedded in how Western institutions and wealthy individuals treat non-Western cultural property. When a Hollywood actor wears ancient Iranian gold to a London premiere, the implied message—that such objects exist for Western aesthetic consumption—echoes historical patterns that many post-colonial societies have spent decades attempting to resist and redress.
The practical question of where responsibility lies remains unresolved. Representatives for Zendaya, Law Roach, Barron London, and Glenn Spiro declined to comment on the controversy, a silence that itself proved instructive. The fashion industry has historically positioned itself as separate from and above questions of provenance and ownership, treating such concerns as matters for museums and lawyers rather than stylists and designers. Yet as celebrity fashion increasingly incorporates museum-quality artifacts, that boundary has become impossible to maintain. A stylist choosing a piece for a client arguably bears some ethical responsibility for understanding that piece's origins and the broader implications of its public display.
Looking forward, the incident may catalyse broader conversations within the fashion industry about establishing ethical guidelines for the use of historical artifacts in contemporary styling. Some galleries and jewellers may begin requiring detailed provenance documentation before making pieces available for celebrity wear, while others may voluntarily decline to participate in such uses altogether. The Metropolitan Museum of Art and similar institutions that hold Ziwiye hoard pieces might face renewed calls to consider repatriation or long-term loan arrangements with Iran. Most ambitiously, the controversy could prompt fashion houses, stylists, and celebrity clients to embrace the creative challenge of theme dressing without relying on extracted artifacts—proving that historical narrative can be conveyed through contemporary design rather than through the appropriation of historical objects themselves.
