Hermes Mini Maillon Earrings Lacquered Metal Yellow Gold Orange Soie H100052FE02

The name Orange Soie promises silk, and the lacquer delivers something close: a clear, faintly apricot orange with a glossy surface that shifts as you turn your head.

Cold yellow-gold plating gives the enamel a crisp edge, colder than rose gold, so the orange reads cleaner against the skin. The framed link is two centimetres high and 1.2 wide, and at four grams per earring it sits between a stud and a small hoop in impact; the shape reads clearly from a metre away, which is more than I could say for the studs I owned before these.

I wear them through the hotter half of the year, with white cotton, straw hats and a tan, and I have taken them to dinner with a rust-coloured dress where they looked unexpectedly dressy. They are also, and this matters more than it sounds, easy to put on: the post slides through and the butterfly holds, with no fiddling behind an ear.

What to know before you commit: orange is loud in the best way, so it will not blend into a wardrobe of cool blues and greys; it wants cream, olive, denim and terracotta around it. And because this is plated metal with a lacquer finish, sunscreen is the thing to avoid. Apply it first, let it dry properly, then put your earrings on.

Two of my friends bought the same pair after seeing mine, which is the most honest review I can offer, and both of them wear them with jeans.