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.”

In which of the stores is men’s jewelry most popular? “Tokyo is our strongest in men’s jewelry,” Ms. Hoppen said. “They like what is special and different, and they are really fashion aware in terms of style and how to present themselves. The English are slightly more reserved and New York, slightly less adventurous.”

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.

This summer, the Ambush jeweler Yoon Ahn worked with Dior Homme’s new designer, Kim Jones, on his spring 2019 show: Her creations show a penchant for link chokers. The Alexander McQueen men’s collection also featured necklaces with jet-black Swarovski crystals and medallion pendants.

But, as in fashion, the lines between men’s and women’s jewelry have become increasingly blurred, too.

Jaden Smith wore one of Vita Fede’s women’s Titan bracelets to the Met Gala this year (along with his gold record). The influential British jeweler Stephen Webster, who first introduced his Rayman men’s line about 20 years ago, came out with a Unisex collection last year.

Maybe one day jewelry will all be unisex. (At the Dover Street Market, it already seemed to be; every jewelry line Ms. Hoppen singled out was unisex.)

Matching the look

Some men, said Karen Giberson, president of the Accessories Council trade group based in New York, are starting to treat their jewelry the way women do, wearing different pieces during the day than at night.

George Cramer is among them. A former art director for PolyGram records, Mr. Cramer now spends most of his time on the Côte d’Azur in France. “During a normal day, I wear a watch and one of my bracelets,” he said. “But for lunch or dinner with friends or business relatives, I really take the time to select something that fits the occasion.” He has a large wardrobe of Cartier watches, bracelets, rings to choose among.

Men all over the world are now viewing jewelry “as part of an outfit,” Amedeo Scognamiglio said. The self-proclaimed “King of Cameos” is the sixth generation of his family to be involved with the jewelry that is still carved out of conch shells by hand in Torre del Greco, Italy. More than a decade ago he broke the mold of traditional cameos, with their classic profiles or floral motifs, by designing ones with skulls and crossbones that rockers like Keith Richards snapped up.

“The men’s side is growing so fast,” Mr. Scognamiglio said, that Harrods in London and Barneys New York recently opened special sections featuring his line, Amedeo. They are not in the jewelry department, but in the men’s clothing section.

“Men need to be in an environment that seems masculine, in the lighting, in the ambience,” Mr. Scognamiglio said. “The jewelry’s language needs to speak a man’s language.” Amedeo’s most recent designs, with snakes, evil eyes, skulls with crowns and elephants with their trunks decidedly up, are set in silver, sometimes studded with black diamonds and placed on black leather or silver chains, or turned into rings.

Before heading to the Cannes Film Festival this year, Spike Lee bought several of Amedeo’s rings and necklace, explaining that the jewelry always brought him good luck. (He wasn’t disappointed; his film “BlacKkKlansman” won the Grand Prix.)

Diamonds are also rising in popularity, like the full-pavé effect on Mr. Yurman’s most recent DY Dog Tags design. In Paris, the jeweler Alexandre Corrot of Djula said his male customers “are asking for more diamonds,” too.

“Some men want a little sparkle,” Ms. Perry of David Perry & Associates said. “Not necessarily high wattage, but at recent shows we saw men’s rings and bracelets accented with black spinels or black diamonds, which offer the kind of subtle dazzle one could wear every day.”

Jewelry that means something

Men want jewelry that holds some meaning, Ms. Giberson of the Accessories Council said. “They want their jewelry to be unique, to be part of their story telling.”

As an example, she pointed to Dune Jewelry, the Boston-based company that 10 years ago introduced a collection of transparent discs — as pendants, on bangles or mounted on rings — that hold sand. The company has sand and dirt from about 3,300 places around the world, including Yankee Stadium, resorts in Dubai and the Maldives, and golf courses in Ireland — a library that Ms. Giberson said it called its Sandbank. “Or people can send in their own sand that they scooped up on vacation,” she said. The resulting pieces are highly personal; Dune calls it experiential jewelry.

If you are in search of jewelry stores near me and want to know more about it then please contact us in the comment section.