How Gold Teeth Became a Fashion Statement
Grillz are an integral part of today's pop culture. But how did the tooth jewellery go from gangster accessory to it-piece?
Good morning,
Reporting back from fashion month. A lot happened, some highlights, a few awful things and an incredible rebranding. But my attention is currently on a clothing overdose. So, apologies, but no chance of me writing about fashion weeks right now.
But anyway, this is about something that caught my eye during fashion weeks. Grillz. Honestly, I thought the hype was over. I thought grillz stood for the years around 2015, for Travis Scott, the emergence of trap music and my first times at parties. But somehow these things are an integral part of our pop culture.
Whether rapper, fashion editor, model, designer, or influencer, gold and diamonds flash at us from the mouths of the beautiful and trendy. Grillz are as much a part of pop culture as Elton John and techno raves. But who actually started making their teeth gold and why?
OG Maya Drip
Tooth jewellery is not even as new as you think. To really understand how grillz came to be, let's go on a journey through time. And this time we're going really far back. Namely, to the Etruscan people in the year 800 BC. Already at that time, the rich and beautiful women of the people who lived in the region of Italy removed their front teeth and replaced them with gold. However, they were not the only folks doing this at that time. The Maya were also into drip in the mouth: they drilled holes in their teeth and inserted pieces of jade. Pain was secondary, as long as the drip was right. So even without dubious rappers, tooth jewellery already had an significant place in our history.
Tooth jewellery — ergo grillz — is particularly popular in South America. In this region of the world, the drip in the mouth has been very important for a long time. But the reason behind this is rather shocking: Now, we are in the time around 1800, when slavery was widespread in South America. Back then, tooth inflammation was a common problem. The slaves could only dream of toothpaste and regular brushing. Consequently, a large number of them were suffering from tooth decay. But only the slaves who were most important for the economy or the household of their masters received treatment. These were given a stainless steel tooth. Tooth replacements thus became a sign of prestige among the slaves and strongly influenced the cult of the grillz in South America.
Born in the Lower Class
But even after the time of slavery, gold teeth were seen everywhere for generations. In the 1980s, in the USA, it was mainly migrants from Africa and South America who were the first to be seen with gold teeth. At that time, gold was one of the cheaper materials for dental prostheses — a ceramic tooth was unaffordable. That's why it was more the socially weak sections of the population who had gold teeth. But even then, the look appealed to the other strata of the people as well.
This period also saw the birth of the actual grillz we know today. Actually, it all happened because a man broke his tooth during his holiday. And a few years later, hype hip-hop had teeth full of gold. The culprit was the New Yorker Eddie Plein. Or rather, the missing tooth of Eddie Plein.
We have arrived in 1983 and the New Yorker is on a visit to Suriname. The home country of his parents. While on holiday, he breaks a tooth and goes to the nearest dentist. He sees no other solution than to insert a gold tooth into Eddie's mouth. On the one hand because gold is Suriname's main export product — even today — and because gold is a very good dental prosthesis. Eddie is actually keen on the look of a gold tooth, but not forever. At the dentist, he gets the idea that there should be something like a coat of gold for the teeth. Grillz. And the idea of the removable gold tooth was born.
With this idea in his luggage, he started studying dentistry in New York. Not because he wanted to pursue this profession full time. No. He only went through his studies until he learned how to insert gold, ceramic or other stainless steel teeth and how they are produced. Then he dropped his studies and concentrated on his idea. Gold-plated caps for over the teeth. The first prototypes went to his parents. Then the success really took off: Eddie's marketing strategy was to approach the pushers on the street — those with the gold chains, rings and watches — and make the gold teeth palatable to them. Word of mouth made Eddie's Goldteeth known on the streets. Hype straight from New York's grittiest corners.
His first fat catch was logically a rapper from the Bronx. Namely, Just Ice. He had Eddie fit his upper and lower jaw with grillz. And put the gold teeth directly on his album cover and promotional posters. Without any marketing budget, New York was plastered with Eddie's Goldteeth. Back then, the teeth on the street were still called «Goldfronts». But grillz quickly supplanted that term.
Grillz, by the way, comes from the word for the radiator grill of a car. Because, yes logically, the gold teeth are the radiator grill for your visage.
Breakthrough Thanks to Southern Rap
Eddie then makes his way to the Dirty South. He opened a shop in Atlanta and continues to experiment with his grillz. In the process, he also gilds the teeth of Outkast and Ludacris. Some of the most important spokespersons for the hype of the grillz. The hype was already so big at the time that he had to move from city to city to live up to the hype. Eddie's Goldteeth became a real family business.
In the meantime, we have already arrived in the 2000s. We've left the turn of the millennium behind us and Southern rap is just really breaking through — and the bling-bling society with it, of course. When Nelly dropped the song «Grillz» with Paul Wall and Ali in 2005, it was over. In schools all over the world, kids were making grillz out of aluminium paper and the first one-size-fits-all grillz appeared on the market. That was it. The grillz are an integral part of pop culture.
After 2005, Eddie is far from the only one in the grillz business. Several have made a name for themselves. One of them being Johnny Dang. Aka the King of Bling. Today, he is the best known in the world when it comes to grillz. Hip-hop legends like A$AP Rockie and Kanye West are clients of his. But even Olympic champion Ryan Lochte accepted his gold medal with grillz from Johnny Dang in his mouth. And for the first time, people outside of hip-hop were associated with grillz. Today, grillz are part of the celebrity world like the Kardashians. But for Eddie, the hype became his downfall. Prices too low, competition too big and a missed hook-up to the internet. Eddie's business went down the drain of the hype. Today, the Godfather of the Grillz no longer produces tooth jewellery, but his legacy still lives on.
Love,
Pascal