Familiarity, Tradition Mark Fashion Trend
By Carrie Soucy, Senior Editor -- JCK Online, 2/1/2002 2:00:00 AM
Forget fancy colors and rainbow hues: The hottest trend for spring has nothing to do with exotic origins. Instead, it's all about tradition and comfort—American patriotism and familiar precious gemstones.
Designers who just last year were mesmerized by the unusual—from green sapphires to black diamonds—have returned to the basics: rubies, sapphires, and diamonds. Fashionistas, meanwhile, have embraced red, white, and blue and endorsed it as this spring's must-have in clothes and fine jewelry.
As jewelry designers and manufacturers quickly responded to the wave of patriotism, they echoed the sentiments of fashion in general. Even Vogue graced its cover with a model (albeit a Brazilian one!) in jeans and a patriotic T-shirt.
While early patriotic trends leaned toward explicit symbols like enameled flags, the trend that has emerged as most fashionable—and with the longest fashion shelf life—is the diamond-ruby-sapphire combination.
The trend offers variations for all market segments, such as a ring of graduated-color rubies, diamonds, and sapphires in Mark Patterson's signature style, as well as traditional stack rings and bangles. Some companies, like LeVian, are interpreting the trend literally and creating flags with the precious stones. Even the three-stone concept—heavily promoted and popularized by De Beers—has taken on new meaning, with the traditional three diamonds giving way to a trio of ruby, diamond, and sapphire in many designs.
The trend is, of course, no surprise, but rather the happy union between the power of patriotism and the taste for tradition.
