Miley Cyrus's Diamond Anklet Turns a Nostalgic Moment Into Minimalist Magic

When Miley Cyrus walked into the 2026 iHeartRadio Music Awards in an all-black Hermès leather pea coat and coordinating trousers, the instinct was to look up. The sharp tailoring, the structured silhouette, the $13,000 Marli hoop earrings catching stage light as she accepted the Innovator Award — all of it commanded attention at eye level. But the most quietly brilliant accessory decision of the night was closer to the floor: a slim, diamond-encrusted anklet resting on her right ankle, just visible above the tip of a pointy pump.

The Full Picture: Hermès Structure, Marli Sparkle

Stylist Bradley Kenneth built Cyrus's look around Hermès's Fall/Winter 2025 collection, pairing the label's structured leather pea coat with coordinating leather trousers. Against that monochromatic, almost austere foundation, the jewelry carried all the narrative weight. Kenneth pulled approximately $58,000 worth of pieces from New York-based Marli, spanning the brand's CLEO, AVENUES, and TIP-TOP collections, each crafted in gold and set with diamonds. Cyrus stacked four diamond rings across her fingers, wore a matching diamond bracelet, and let the hoop earrings punctuate the look with just enough scale. Then, almost as an afterthought, there was the anklet: a delicate, diamond-set band that said everything without shouting.

The restraint was the point. In a room where Taylor Swift swapped satin heels for a bejeweled pair mid-evening and Raye performed in Tiffany & Co. earrings valued at $18,300, Cyrus achieved her most memorable accessory moment through subtraction rather than addition.

The Hannah Montana Echo

The iHeartRadio Music Awards arrived mid-celebration of the 20th anniversary of Hannah Montana, and Cyrus leaned into it in her acceptance speech. "This week, celebrating 20 years of Hannah Montana has been a dream come true," she said on stage. "Hannah Montana inspired me so much in my own career. I fell in love with the idea that you can create a persona that gives you the confidence and the courage to perform authentically." That context reframed the anklet as more than a styling choice; it became a piece of living continuity.

During Season 3 of Hannah Montana, Cyrus's character loses an anklet given to her by her mother. London Tipton, Brenda Song's character from Suite Life of Zack & Cody, finds it, assumes the diamonds are fake, and throws it off a boat. Twenty years later, Cyrus reclaimed that particular piece of jewelry history with a real diamond anklet and a red carpet's worth of flash photography to document it. It is the kind of full-circle detail that earns its own paragraph.

Why the Anklet Works as a Minimalist Statement

The diamond anklet occupies a specific, underappreciated tier of fine jewelry: expensive enough in material to qualify as an investment, but so visually restrained that its impact registers as mood rather than statement. Where a cuff bracelet or a layered necklace demands attention, an anklet rewards attention. It is jewelry for people who notice jewelry.

Summer 2025 was undeniably the season of anklets, with similar styles frosted onto the legs of Kim Kardashian, Gigi Hadid, Hailey Bieber, and Sydney Sweeney. The interpretations ranged widely: Sweeney and Hadid preferred beachy, more casual picks, while Bieber and Kardashian leaned fully into the diamond department. What Cyrus did at the iHeartRadio Awards was extend that summer energy into a formal red-carpet context, treating the anklet not as a warm-weather accessory but as a year-round micro-jewelry moment. A Marli diamond band on a black leather night in Hollywood is not the same object as a shell anklet at a beach bonfire, and Cyrus's styling made that case clearly.

How to Wear an Anklet Without Losing It

The single practical challenge of an anklet is visibility. Obscure it under a trouser hem or a boot shaft and it simply disappears, which defeats the entire investment. The solution is architectural: the cut and proportion of everything above the ankle must actively frame the piece below it.

A few approaches that work:

• Cropped trousers are the most direct route. A wide-leg or straight-leg crop that breaks just above the ankle creates a natural focal frame, leaving the anklet exposed regardless of shoe height.
• Tailored coats with a high hem follow the same logic. Cyrus's Hermès pea coat, structured and precise, never competed with the anklet; its silhouette stopped at a point that left the lower leg clear.
• Pointed pumps or slingbacks provide a cleaner sightline to the ankle than a platform or chunky sole, which can visually absorb the delicate hardware. The anklet trend, though subtle, elevated Cyrus's pointy pumps to It-girl levels of cool.
• Barely-there sandals work in warmer months, as Hailey Bieber demonstrated with a dainty gold chain style, because the open shoe allows the ankle full exposure from every angle.

The anklet itself benefits from a similarly considered approach. A slim, pave-set diamond band like the Marli piece reads as an extension of a bracelet stack that has simply traveled south, maintaining the logic of an overall look rather than appearing as a standalone eccentricity.

The Broader Shift in Spring/Summer '26 Jewelry

The anklet's red-carpet arrival is not an isolated moment. The spring/summer '26 season is tracking toward what editors are calling "tiny, intentional" accents: micro hoops, single solitaire ear studs, delicate chain bracelets worn one at a time, and now diamond anklets visible only from certain angles and distances. The shared quality across all of them is that they require closeness to fully appreciate. They reward intimacy rather than spectacle.

Marli, whose CLEO and AVENUES collections have positioned the brand firmly in this territory with their gold-set, diamond-forward approach to everyday fine jewelry, is well situated in that shift. The pieces Kenneth chose for Cyrus were not one-occasion jewels; they are the kind of stacking-compatible, design-coherent work that moves from a red carpet to a Tuesday morning without adjustment. The anklet, in particular, requires only the right hem length.

Cyrus's line from her Innovator Award speech applies with more precision than she perhaps intended: "Innovation for me hasn't been about leaving who I've been behind." The anklet carried two decades of personal history and wore it as quietly as the diamond set allowed. That is the particular power of minimalist jewelry: it holds everything and shows almost nothing.