Beyond the Monochrome

No longer are coloured gems reserved for women its notion of the feminine has paved for a renaissance in men’s adornments, perhaps thanks to the youth’s growing distaste for the colourless.

- Jon-Patric De Mello

When a male celebrity famed for "see(ing) both sides like Chanel" creates his own jewellery brand, boasting brightly coloured accessories, genderless lab-grown diamonds, and a campaign primarily featuring male models - one would know that the men's jewellery market has seen a big cultural shift, in which guys are pretty like girls.

Men's jewellery has historically and unsurprisingly been "masculine" like most menswear. They are practically devoid of colour, while the design is simple and unadorned. Materials are restricted to the tried and tested classics gold and silver; finishings are inoffensive - blackened silver, brushed steel, or reworked machine parts. In fact, men's jewellery has long been gemless because jewels have been reserved for women for their notion of femininity. How, then, has the coloured gem become the choice accessory for a Gen Z man steeped enough in TikTok and Pinterest fashion? How has a string of pearls and a multi-coloured gem choker become the defacto "f-boy" necklace, while costume jewellery from the likes of Vivienne Westwood found an unprecedented resurgence? The trend certainly begets many questions. Has the modern version of the urban metrosexual man adopted polychromatic jewellery as their new pointer to cultural prowess? Or has the youth's growing distaste for the colourless for the overwhelming palettes of millennial grey and eggshell white - seeped their way into our choice for accessories? Perhaps its motivation is more pragmatic, an economical and accessible maxim for flair and eccentricity that is low-cost compared to traditional luxury jewellery brands. For the chronically online, as an appeal to the dating pool, to the "female gaze", to serve as an antithesis to the trope of the "manly man" and to break down ideas of the hyper-masculine. The reasons need not be mutually exclusive; in fact, it is likely a mix of all.