Platinum and white gold begone – luxury jewellery is embracing the 70s swagger of bright, bold, yellow gold in new pieces from Cartier, Boucheron, Tiffany & Co., and more
Just as catwalk trends from Celine, Saint Laurent and more are returning to the ostentatious, me-me-me styles of the 1970s, so too are luxury jewellers embracing attention-grabbing yellow gold rings and statement necklaces
Fashion’s love affair with the 1970s shows no sign of abating. At Celine, Hedi Slimane revisited the French bourgeoisie, circa 1974, mixing denim, blazers and pleated dresses with the nonchalant layering of ultrafine gold chains for the summer collection. Anthony Vaccarello drew inspiration from Saint Laurent’s legendary Russian hippie deluxe collection of 1976 for spring/summer 2020, with long, skinny yellow gold chains and pendants jangling around models’ necks and big, gold gypsy hoop earrings hanging from their lobes.
This nostalgia isn’t confined to the catwalk. The warm hue appears in fine jewellery collections from Boucheron, Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, to Tiffany & Co. and Qeelin.
Colours in gold are subject to slow-burning trends. The bright yellow that the word “gold” brings to mind dominated jewellery in the 1960s and 70s before being tarnished by the brash gilt costume jewellery of the early 1980s. It was replaced by the cool sobriety of white gold jewellery during the 1990s and early millennium years, then warmed up with rose gold in the past decade, before coming full circle to that bright, upbeat yellow again.
It is serendipitous that 1974 should be chosen as the stepping-off point for Celine, for that same year Elsa Peretti joined Tiffany & Co. in New York. The former Halston model flouted convention by offering affordable diamond jewellery with a fun and youthful spirit in her revolutionary “Diamonds by the Yard” design for Tiffany – a fine yellow gold chain dotted with diamonds. “I wanted to make diamonds easy to wear,” she explained at the time.
It was an instant success: clients could buy any length of diamond chain they desired, wind it around their necks, let it glint in the sunlight under an open-necked silk shirt or loop sexily low over one of Diane von Furstenberg’s famous wrap dresses.
Peretti’s design for Tiffany & Co. boosted the trend for these long, low chains of fine yellow gold (sautoir) that became very fashionable during the mid-70s. At the same time, stylish women in France, such as Princess Grace and singer Françoise Hardy, were snapping up Van Cleef & Arpels’ long, talismanic Alhambra necklaces. Originally designed in 1968, the range was expanded to include exotic stones. Instead of wearing a single statement necklace, women started layering multiple pieces of different lengths along with multiple gold bangles and rings to create a deluxe hippie look. The 50th anniversary of the vintage Alhambra design in 2018 has prompted a fresh surge in popularity, especially among younger clients like Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.
Last year, Boucheron added its own interpretations of the delicate yellow gold sautoir, with a series of designs featuring turquoise and diamonds in the Serpent Bohème and gold and diamond Jack de Boucheron collections. The latter, a round snake chain, can be worn as a necklace or coiled around the wrist or in the hair.