Classic jewelry of the 1980's

We Are Always Interested In Purchasing Eighties Jewelry!

The early 1980's- The beginning of the decade of the 1980's was an amazing time in the jewelry business. Big rocks were still on trending from Harry Winston and names like Elizabeth Tailor and likely coming towards their peak. In 1981 MTV was launched and had such a profound and major influence on style and jewelry. This meant influences in jewelry could co-exist and create styles that could exist at the same time. Influences on MTV like Hall and oats, Queen, Michael Jackson brought their own styles. Conflicting yet complimentary styles everything pointed toward BIG. Large, and bold were in. Large bracelets, oversized hoops, cocktail rings, bangles, name necklaces to name a few. Thick heavy gold rope chains (think Mr T).

It was during this time that Jewelry became a statement, not just an accessory. At the same time we have another trend developing, a push back to classic. This trend started, largely, with the engagement of Princess Diana. A simple, elegant, classic oval sapphire center stones with diamond halo. This simultaneous trend meant colored stone centers and round stones with tapered baguettes were trending. This was also the first time really in history where a trend of matching wedding bands became important to the masses.

By the Mid 1980's- Influencers like Madonna, and Run DMC brought the rise of costume jewelry once again. As the mainstream could not quite afford such bold jewelry costume became important. This meant not just fine jewelry look-a-likes but plastics with bold colors as well. Pearls, both real and costume-clip earrings became immensely popular. From mabe earrings, to drop necklaces pearl jewelry was amazingly popular. This era of the 1980's meant bold yellow gold was in, even with brooches! Coin jewelry surfaced as well as a new trend in the mid 1980's and that was channel set baguettes.

The Late 1980's Artists like Grandmaster flash and others were on the horizon along with Whitney Houston, yet George Michael and White Snake were already influencing the fashion world. Yellow gold reigned supreme still and when the stock market crashed in 1987 we saw a slow trend towards conservatism. Which lead us in the 1990sAs you can see the overall theme of the 1980's was big, bold, gold. Because of this trend we saw many iconic brands "made" in the 1980's

Carrera y Carrera - The Panther
Niessing in Germany - The invention of the tension setting
The rise of “smaller” designer names:

Two other highly notable things happened in the 1980's with jewelry; not styles but actions:

Collectors and dealers began to start the trend of Colored diamonds. I call this The rise of fancy color diamonds though they are not mainstream quite yet
The rise of self bought jewelry. This meant, unlike most situations in previous eras of jewelry, if you saw it, you liked it, you wanted it, you bought it.