The New Appeal of Men’s Jewelry
If you think you have been seeing more men wearing rings, bracelets and pendants — like Jay-Z, John Mayer or Hiroshi Fujiwara, known as the Godfather of Tokyo’s trendy Harajuku area — you’re not wrong.
The trend, which began several years ago along with the birth of men’s wear fashion weeks, has firmly taken hold around the globe. (The men’s weeks, however, haven’t enjoyed quite as much success.)
Some industry figures say Instagram has had a lot to do with the appeal.
Men today “don’t look at fashion magazines, but they look at Instagram,” said Cynthia Sakai, a Japanese jeweler who designs her Vita Fede line in New York, has it made in Italy, and sells it around the world in fashion-forward stores like Harvey Nichols and Lane Crawford. She is introducing a men’s line this fall. “Guys do style posts on Instagram, they do selfies and tell their friends what they’re wearing. Instagram and Snapchat changed the game.”
But it makes sense that social media has that kind of impact as the market research company NPD Group reported that, in the United States anyway, “Millennials are driving men’s jewelry sales, generating half of the growth, followed by Gen Z and Gen X.”
Global sales of men’s luxury fine jewelry reached $5.3 billion in 2017, up from $4.3 billion in 2012, an increase of 22 percent, according to Euromonitor International, a market research company. That may not seem like much when compared with the $31.9 billion sales in the women’s sector in 2017 — but the men’s growth has been steady.
There are trends in men’s
Rings are the hot men’s item around the world, with NPD Group noting that, in the United States, they “generate one-third of the men’s jewelry sales and almost two-thirds of the industry growth. Necklaces/chains are the No. 2 category, generating one-quarter of sales.”
Men’s rings have become so popular, said Sue Millar Perry, content director at David Perry & Associates, a company that produces custom magazines for top luxury jewelry and watch retailers, that some jewelers have adapted their designs. “Many men are not used to wearing jewelry,” Ms. Perry said, “so you’re seeing more rings marketed for their ‘comfort fit,’ which means in essence that the ring is crafted so the inside of the band is slightly domed — instead of flat against the skin — to create a fit which is comfy-er on the finger and easier to squeeze over a knuckle.”
Evan Yurman recently introduced a special collection of rings — or bands, as he calls them — at David Yurman, his parents’ international jewelry company, where he started a men’s line 14 years ago. “Men don’t have to have what’s basically a gold washer,” he said. His new collection of bands are ridged, fluted, faceted and cabled in signature David Yurman style, and made of titanium, forged carbon, meteorite, black diamonds and more, selling for $295 to around $7,900.
Rings rule at the influential Dover Street Market stores in London, Tokyo and New York, too. In talking about her hottest new jewelry finds, the examples that Mimi Hoppen, the London-based director of jewelry, gave turned out to be all about rings. She said she favored “Tom Wood, a Norwegian designer, with signet rings; and The Great Frog, an English brand, with big chunky silver rings. And Castro, an English engraver making rings. And the Tokyo jeweler Natural Instinct with their big, chunky silver carved bracelets and rings.”
What’s next?
Note to trend-sensitive guys: Get a necklace.
Jewelry has been playing an ever-larger role in the top men’s collections, from Gucci to Chanel, so the runway is the place to look for the next Big Thing in jewelry.
If you are in search of blue diamond engagement rings and want to know more about it then please contact us in the comment section.
If you are in search of blue diamond engagement rings and want to know more about it then please contact us in the comment section.
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