Jewellery Apartheid

Apartheid /əˈpɑːtheɪt,əˈpɑːtʌɪd/ – noun. A policy or practice of separating or segregating groups.

I had a conversation with a friend on the weekend who is a gold purist – ie, while she admires my silver jewellery, she only ever wears gold. Upon reflection, it occurred to me that I know quite a few people who segregate their jewellery – either choosing to only ever wear one type or, like my sister who has a white-gold & silver wardrobe, and an alternate yellow-gold wardrobe.

Weird. It's like they might not get along.

To some extent I understand the drivers behind jewellery apartheid – classical gold can be hard to balance with silver in terms of colour and style. Gold jewellery design tends to be quite pared back, owing entirely to the hair-raising price of gold. There are some astonishingly beautiful designs in gold and now that rose gold has made a comeback, the big design houses are delivering some pieces I totally covet. But sadly, cannot afford.

Traditional thinking has generally been that your big silver statement ring probably isn’t going to play nicely with your classical gold band all on the one hand. So rather than mixing it up and having precious metal chaos literally on your hands, many have chosen to forgo the fashion forward and creative lines of the alternatives.

That’s why the new approach of stacking – embracing the chaos and challenging the “your side of the street” approach, is one trend I absolutely celebrate. Stacking says “who cares?” to the conundrum of whether to silver, yellow or gold. It opens the door to a more creative jewellery wardrobe.

And Francine*, it gives your friends and family something to buy you for Christmas.

Our Collections Rings are an excellent example of the kind of wonderful multi-metalism you can achieve with stacking:

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.