Gold or Silver? (and does it matter?)

Wondering about whether to wear gold jewellery or silver jewellery based on your skin or eye colouring (or to give as a gift to someone)? Have you heard about ‘rules’ to follow when choosing jewellery colours but you’re not sure how to use them?

What do you think about wearing different coloured metals together? Fashion crime or fashion statement?

Wearing Gold vs silver coloured jewellery has been a long-debated topic and there’s plenty of confusion around which metal to choose to suit yourself, your budget and your sense of style.

Thankfully we’re here to help you figure out which metal colours will work for you (or your gift recipient) with the quick tips below.

Read on to get the lowdown, along with more handy jewellery tips and info about different types of precious metal …

Choosing gold or silver jewellery

• Which colour of metal to wear was traditionally determined by people’s skin colouring: warmer colours meant gold metal, cooler colours meant silver metal.
• These days that’s not considered to be so important and you can break such ‘style rules’ as you please, but you might still like to use them as a guide to help you get started with co-ordinating jewellery to suit you and your personal sense of style.
• People with blue veins on their wrists and who burn easily are usually considered to have cool skin colouring.
• People with green veins, olive or darker skin tones or who tan well are considered to have warm colouring.
• One thing to keep in mind when choosing jewellery is that gold is much more expensive than silver because gold is a more valuable precious metal. However, there are less expensive options for gold such as gold filled or gold vermeil. Learn more about different types of gold.
• Rose gold jewellery or copper colours tend to look good on most people and can add some beautiful and unexpected colouring to your jewellery collection.
• Don’t forget that gemstone jewellery can also add an array of different colours (and sparkle!) to your jewellery collection.
• If you’re choosing jewellery as a gift and you’re not sure about which colour to pick, it’s a great idea to keep an eye on what colours your gift recipient tends to wear. Check out our guide to gift giving for the style challenged for some great tips.

Mixing metals: gold & silver

• Another old style rule was that gold and silver should never be worn together. That’s definitely no longer the case: you can mix your metals with enthusiasm!
• We recommend taking the time to do some experimenting and work out what looks good when mixing metals: check out our 15 jewellery style tips for some good ideas.
• As a starting point, pick a dominant colour and add highlights with another. You can try combining different colours of stacking and cocktail rings, layered necklaces and bangle stacks to see how they look.

Ultimately whether you choose to wear gold jewellery or silver jewellery should be entirely down to personal preference, your sense of aesthetics and budget. Take some times out to experiment with different metal colours, different gemstones and with mixing and matching different styles and colours in your jewellery to see what works for you.

We’re all about people being themselves rather than being like everyone else, so our top tip is: go with what makes you feel good about yourself.

Go shopping!

Once you’ve got it worked out, go shopping for silver jewellery, gold jewellery or rose gold jewellery. For more specific types of jewellery we have: gold earrings, gold rings, gold necklaces, silver earrings, silver rings and silver necklaces. I’m sure you’ll find something you love made in our precious metals.

We’re a small, family run Australian jewellery shop and we create unique jewellery for creative women. Learn more about jewellery designer Simone Walsh.