Silver is a big trend in jewellery right now. Pictured here is a shell pendant from JuJu Vera. Photo: The New York Times
In the 1980s and 90s, Robert Lee Morris’ sculptural silver earrings, breastplates and cuffs earned him certain trappings of fashion stardom: a yearslong collaboration with Donna Karan, a friendship with Karl Lagerfeld, exporting his namesake jewellery brand to Japan.
Morris’ Artwear store, known for its museumlike approach to displaying statement jewellery, became a destination in SoHo well before the New York neighbourhood turned into an open-air mall.
The store, which closed in 1995, helped cement his reputation as a designer known for preferring size over subtlety and for bringing new attention to silver (and by extension sterling silver, an alloy).
As the price of gold has soared to all-time highs – peaking at about US$2,800 (approximately RM12,500) an ounce in late October before falling to its current price, about US$2,600 (RM11,600) an ounce – Morris’ preferred medium of silver, which costs about US$30 (RM134) an ounce, has been sought out by a growing number of jewellers.
Many have used the metal to produce hefty and intricate pieces that would be cost prohibitive if made in gold, fueling a shift away from delicate demi-fine baubles and toward sizable jewellery – the kind made by Morris and other established designers known for working with silver, like Ted Muehling, Gabriella Kiss and Judy Geib.
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Earrings and necklaces
“You can’t afford to buy gold, but you can afford to buy silver,” Morris said, adding that there has recently been an uptick in demand for his chunky pieces.
He attributed the renewed interest to the “tremendous amount of energy in the world”, as he put it.
“The world is in a very high level of activity, and that wakes people up and keeps people on the edge of their seat,” said Morris, 77, whose silver necklaces cost between hundreds of dollars (for pendants) and thousands (for bibs of Gobstopper-size balls).
“People want to buy things in this period of sadness and fear, and they want a big silver cuff.”
Bulky cuffs are but one of countless options to buy these days.
J Hannah, a label in Los Angeles, offers classic charm necklaces and signet rings. Mondo Mondo, another brand in the city, is known for quirkier styles embedded with colorful stones.
Sophie Buhai, who also designs jewellery in Los Angeles, makes silver barrettes as well as necklaces with pendants shaped like eggs and vases, some of which recall the modernist silver designs by Elsa Peretti for Tiffany & Co.
Leo Costelloe, an artist in London, crafts silver into pieces resembling ribbon bows and crowns. Jewellers Charlotte Chesnais, in Paris, and Juju Vera, in New York, both design with an eye for curvature and exaggerated proportion.
Items from Quarry, another label in New York, are distinguished by their bulbous shapes, while those from Agmes and Sapir Bachar, two more New York brands, are known for their clean lines.
Emily Dawn Long, a designer in New York who releases small collections of clothing and accessories – rapper Kendrick Lamar is a fan of her knit hats – recently introduced a line of silver jewellery manufactured by artisans in Indonesia.
An image from Leo Costelloe shows the artist’s sterling silver “Party Crown”. Photo: The New York Times
Dawn Long, 34, said the price of silver made the metal an obvious choice for her cowrie-shell bracelets and cuff links because “money is so unfreeing for an artist”.
Sales of silver items at Completedworks, a small jewellery brand in London, jumped this year compared with 2023, said its founder, Anna Jewsbury.
According to her, the metal’s lower cost allows jewellers and consumers to “prioritise design and creativity”.
“Jewellery is a mini sculpture and silver allows you to lean into that,” she added.
At Love Adorned, a jewellery boutique known for its selection of independent brands and vintage pieces, the interest in silver items has been driven as much by changing tastes as it has been by economic trends.
“Clients who have bought a lot of gold from us, who have the means to buy big amounts of gold, are now buying silver – it’s the look,” said Lori Leven, the owner of Love Adorned, which has locations in Manhattan and on Long Island in New York.
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Rings and bracelets
Stephanie Roger, the owner of Whitebird, a jewellery boutique that sells many brands, described a similar demand among customers of her three stores in Paris. So did jeweler Kendra Scott, whose namesake brand has some 130 stores in the US.
“We are seeing silver sell at much higher rates than we have in the past; people want silver or even silvertone jewelry,” said Scott, who recently introduced a Western-themed collection, Yellow Rose, full of silvery pieces.
Scott said her company’s sales of silver items in 2024 spiked compared with last year’s output, adding that interest in silver has coincided with preferences shifting from small jewellery toward pieces with significant proportions.
The shift toward maximalist jewellery is a reaction to the minimalist trend known as quiet luxury, said Thom Bettridge, the editor of i-D magazine.
“The quieter sensibility creates more room for jewellery and accessorising and creating a sense of abundance through accessories,” he said.
At Old Jewelry, a boutique in Manhattan’s Chinatown that specialises in silver pieces, cases are filled with a mix of contemporary artist-made jewellery and wonderfully strange vintage designs, which exist in abundance because of the metal’s history as a medium for avant-garde artists, Indigenous makers and European aristocrats.
Many vintage pieces still exist because the value of silver jewellery has never made it worth melting down for cash, said Old Jewelry’s founder, Sarah Burns.
“They call it the people’s metal, because it’s approachable for both the artist making the work and the consumer who wants to own a piece,” she added. – ©2024 The New York Times Company
