Zendaya and Law Roach, her stylist, are known for pulling off the impossible.

The actor wore a silver robot suit from Thierry Mugler’s fall 1995 collection while promoting “Dune: Part Two” in 2024. While promoting “The Odyssey” this month, she wore a cream Schiaparelli gown, designed to resemble a marble sculpture, that had debuted on the runway hours earlier. At another event for the film, she wore a pair of earrings made from gold discs from ancient Iran.

The last one of those rarefied pieces of fashion has sparked debate in the world of archaeology and cultural preservation. Some archaeologists saw the repurposing of ancient artifacts as fashion as cause for concern and as disrespectful to the cultures they belong to, or as an act of “fetishizing the past,” as the archaeologist and creator Dr. Z said, which could help drive the antiquities black market. Additionally, critics worried about the origins of the artifact, which they believed was obtained through looting and colonial plunder.

Earlier this month, Zendaya, who is known for theme dressing, wore an ivory halter gown with an attached head scarf from the French label Jacquemus while promoting her latest film in London. She accessorized with statement disc gold-and-diamond earrings whose origins date to the first millennium B.C., according to Barron London, a gallery specializing in rare jewels and stones, which posted a photo of Zendaya wearings its earrings on its Instagram page.

On its website, the gallery highlights a pair of Ziwiye gold medallion plaques, which it says were mounted with diamonds by Glenn Spiro, a London-based jeweler.

In a statement to The Guardian, the gallery said it had acquired the earrings in 2025 from Spiro, whose Materials of the Old World collection featured ancient artifacts converted into jewelry.

Representatives for Zendaya, Law Roach, Barron and Spiro did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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