Diamonds Aren’t a Girl’s Best Friend: Why Diamonds Are Out and Colorful Stones Are In Style
Gone are the days when we used to hear the old saying, “diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” Today, colorful gemstones are becoming much more popular for any occasion from formal events, proposals and wedding rings, to every day wear. Here are the reasons why more women are opting for colorful jewels.
Why diamonds have lost their shine: ethics and values
Diamonds can still be seen as a gemstone that is very glamorous and can bring us back to old Hollywood retro, but the look has pretty much become tired and is constantly overdone. A Diamond can go with anything and everything because it’s translucent, but that can be extremely boring as well.
Today, women want to stand out against the crowd with their jewelry and selecting gemstones with beautiful color in order to make a bold statement.
There’s also a lot of negative connotations with Diamonds today, especially if the jeweler is selling Blood Diamonds. Blood Diamonds are gemstones that have been mined in order to help finance wars or a warlord’s activity. The unethical trading of blood diamonds has steered people away from considering purchasing the gemstone.
Genuine gemstones will always be fairly expense, but the rising costs of Diamonds has played a hand in changing people’s minds about purchasing them in the first place. Small and independent producers need to keep with changes in the market and because people are becoming much more interested in other gemstones, the decreased desire to purchase diamonds has caused jewelers to raise the prices everywhere.
The sudden drive to purchase colorful gemstones: why they are a better choice and more stunning
Overall, more women are steering away from conservative colors adding brighter shades to their overall look from accessories to clothing. Perhaps Pantone has influenced designers to create colorful clothing and jewelry designs for people to purchase. For 2013, Pantone selected a wide variety of jewel-tone colors and Emerald as the number one color to set this year’s trends.
Women might find that colorful gemstones match their personality better. The translucent Diamond is conservative, but there are plenty of other colors to match that tone as well such as the blue Sapphire. Women who prefer bright and loud colors might select a red Ruby instead.
Tribal patterns continue to be in style and many people opted to select Turquoise to match the look because of its beautiful blue color and distinct black vein patterns. Wearing alternatives such as pink or gray pearls instead of boring white is a new way to shake up an old look as well.
It’s also very popular to wear birthstones or the birthstone of someone else’s birth month such as a child’s or another loved one. More and more purchases are made based on a month’s birthstone and each month has a different gemstone or variety of gemstones that are considered the birthstone(s) for that month.
On a side note, the birthstone for April is in fact a Diamond, otherwise every other month has a different colorful jewel.
Colorful gemstones can be just as expensive as Diamonds depending on the gemstone, the carat, and the cut. However, because they are becoming much more popular, jewelers are selling them at a lower price to meet the customers’ demand. According to Pantone, for spring 2014, we’re due to see more jewelry with color in similar shades from 2013 such as Cherry instead of Coral or Aqua instead of Mint.
If you think your partner may pop the question soon, you can remind them what your favorite color is, just in case they forgot, but let’s hope not.
Keep in mind that not all gemstones will be ethically sold and there could be similar black market trades similar to blood diamonds, but there is the option to purchase fair-trade gemstones as well in any color. This way, you will know for a fact that your gemstone purchase was mined and sold with good intentions.
