The scene took place just a week ago, but it already seems like a world ago.
At the 66th Grammy Awards ceremony, a couple walked in what seemed like absolute happiness at the time, while exemplifying the moment of splendor of Latin music.
The Argentine Nicki Nicole and the Mexican Featherweight were one of the attractions of the night, the Spanish-speaking and
dog-friendly
version of the great Hollywood couple.
In the photos of the evening, which will soon become part of the galleries of what could have been and was not, both artists pose smiling.
She, with immaculate white teeth.
Him, with a mouth full of gold.
A little over a week later, that couple seems to no longer exist, but the images will remain forever.
In them, as in many others from this time, perhaps in a few years observers from the future will wonder why they decided to decorate their teeth with gold, diamonds and other noble materials that shine in the light.
Grillz , these pieces of jewelry designed to cover one or more teeth, have gone from being an aesthetic option of subcultures such as rap to being a common trend in pop stars, who pay millionaire figures for
them
commensurate with their assets.
Last month, several American media outlets estimated the titanium grillz that Kanye West wore on his Instagram account at $850,000 (more than 790,000 euros), based on the James Bond villain Jaws (seen in The
Spy Who Loved Me
or
Moonraker
).
The good news is that the most basic models, for budgets far from the great fortunes of Hollywood, start at the 150 euros that a gold ring for one tooth costs.
NEW YORK, NY - MAY 01: Jaden Smith attends the "Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art Of The In-Between" Costume Institute Gala at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 1, 2017 in New York City.
(Photo by Noam Galai/FilmMagic)Noam Galai (FilmMagic)
NEWARK, NEW JERSEY - AUGUST 26: J Balvin attends the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards at Prudential Center on August 26, 2019 in Newark, New Jersey.
(Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/WireImage)Axelle/Bauer-Griffin (WireImage)
In recent years we have seen Dua Lipa, Bella Hadid, Justin Bieber, Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus wearing them.
Others, like Rosalía, have adapted it to their personal imagination, with diamond pieces in the shape of the butterfly from the Motomami logo.
That hypothetical viewer of the future will wonder several things.
Among them, why?
Why then?
And, above all, where does all this come from?
From Etruscans to rappers
Adorning the mouth with metals or precious stones may seem innovative, a
boutade
typical of an era in which celebrities are forced to stand out in the maremagnum that is a crowded red carpet or an
feed
, but it is as old as the discovery of precious materials and the consequent desire to highlight a social status.
The presence of dental ornaments is documented in different places on the planet and in remote times.
It is known that civilizations in Southeast Asia used them 4,000 years ago, thanks to vestiges found in the Philippines.
Similar pieces have been documented in the Etruscan civilization, and the Mayan culture has also left traces of mouth decorations.
Already in the 20th century, the use of a gold case was a symptom, first, of a more than healthy economy, as a substitute for a lost tooth, and later, of a somewhat obscene display that indicated origins outside of legality.
They were worn, for example, by mafia bosses.
But the recent rise of gold or diamond pieces in the teeth has its origin in another more recent culture that draws, in part, from the aesthetics of those same bosses: that of hip hop.
LONDON, ENGLAND - JANUARY 10: Rapper ASAP Rocky shows off his gold grillz teeth after the JW Anderson show during The London Collections Men AW16 at Yeomanry House on January 10, 2016 in London, England.
(Photo by Melodie Jeng/Getty Images)Melodie Jeng (Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GEORGIA - OCTOBER 26: Diamond grillz during True Religion ATL Grand Opening event at Cumberland Mall on October 26, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia.
(Photo by Derek White/Getty Images for True Religion)Derek White (Getty Images for True Religion)
There is no consensus to determine who was the first rapper to use gold caps for his teeth, but Slick Rick was the one who began to popularize it with his debut album in 1988. That moment began an era in which gold and diamonds began to be used. spread from necks, hands and ears to the mouth.
Hip hop culture, which embraced luxury without ambiguity, began to make its own a practice that had fallen into disuse, and that was more closely linked to the In passing, it also gave it a name, or rather several: known as
fronts, golds
, or
grillz
, it is this last name that has come to infiltrate popular culture as a symbol of proud ostentation, the street equivalent of wearing a Rolex on your wrist.
In the popularization of this plugin there is a key name.
In the early eighties, a young man of Surinamese origin named Eddie Plain set out to find a way to decorate teeth without replacing them with metal pieces, as was done then.
As told in the book
Mouth Full of Golds
, by Amani Bin Shikhan, Plain wanted to start a business based on jewelry applied to teeth without damaging them and with the possibility that it would not be permanent.
To do this, he investigated the possibilities of molds to create pieces that covered the teeth without being permanent.
The timing, with the rise of hip hop culture, was perfect for his business.
From Brooklyn, where his family came to the United States, he moved to Atlanta, where he became an institution in the rap scene and created custom designs for aspiring stars and anyone who wanted to show off status in his mouth. .
How
grillz
hit the mainstream
In 1992, Madonna was still at the height of her abilities as a pop star and creator of trends, most of them adapted from street subcultures.
In her visual reinvention for
Erotica
, her album accompanied by her controversial book
De ella Sex
de ella, the singer took an aesthetic step that seemed tremendously risky at the time: a gold tooth.
With that image she photographed herself, recorded video clips and even suffered Millán Salcedo's pelvic friction in a memorable interview.
What at the time seemed like another eccentricity of a star hell-bent on getting lost was actually the gateway for a street and hip hop trend into the culture of pop stardom.
Madonna at the Metropolitan ball in 2017.ANGELA WEISS (AFP via Getty Images)
A gap was thus opened between subculture and mass culture.
Meanwhile, in rap culture,
grillz
continued to be one of the hallmarks of artists of the genre, especially in the south of the country.
There, in cities like Houston, figures such as Johnny Dang emerged, a jeweler of Vietnamese origin who has made a fortune creating personalized designs for artists like Lil' Wayne or Cardi B. The rise of trap, with more risky aesthetic canons among including facial tattoos, revived urban fashion's interest in them.
The current pop world, in the eternal search for street codes that varnish it with authenticity, has progressively incorporated
grillz
into its imagination, first as a dare and then as a custom.
At some point or another, stars like Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Dua Lipa and Beyoncé have incorporated it into their image.
Rosalía adopted it with the Motomami butterfly as her flag, giving it a more subtle and assimilable form.
From there it has gone on to other personalities such as Kim Kardashian, Bella Hadid, Kylie Jenner or athletes like Lebron James.
It has also made its way as a symbol in films such as the Oscar-winning
Moonlight
, by Barry Jenkins, as a symbol of power or, from another perspective, of the transition from adolescence to adulthood in which appearance prevails over innocence. .
Kanye West with another type of dental jewelry: a boxing dental case with the Balenciaga logo.Edward Berthelot (GC Images)
That transition, that of discreet luxury that is shamelessly proclaimed, is perhaps the key to its popularization: making a mouth shine is a statement so direct and alien to the opinion of others that it seems designed for a time in which it that the only thing that will remain, at least for some time, are the images.
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