earth tones

A MODERN JEWELER STAFF REPORT

This year's palette is inspired by the planet. Fashion's current love affair with earthy browns and greens is making inroads in jewelry sales, particularly in urban markets. But for this spring, many jewelers are thinking sky shades, too, and are betting on the blues.

Every month in Modern Jeweler, we call leading retailers across the country to find out what's selling and what they are buying for the season ahead. When it comes to color trends, we see the most variety in responses regionally and by type of market.

This holiday season, jewelers that carry gemstone jewelry brands reported record sales, particularly of David Yurman and Marco Bicego. For these stores, smoky, darker, and green shades are particularly strong. But outside of urban markets, the colors are softer and more feminine.

Every "Buyer's Choice" on color trends makes clear the dominant role of sapphire in gemstone jewelry, and this month's edition is no exception. But this year many stores also reported growing interest in lighter shades of blue, including aquamarine and blue zircon. Other pastels, like seafoam green tourmaline and pink sapphire, are also strong in many stores.

"SPICE OF LIFE" PENDANT WITH MORE THAN 2.5 CARATS OF FANCY COLORED DIAMONDS SURROUNDED BY WHITE DIAMONDS IN 18K ROSE GOLD BY JENNIFER PHELPS-MONTGOMERY FOR MICHAEL WERDIGER, SUGGESTED RETAIL $14,860, [phone]. PHOTO BY CHRIS TRAYER.

fashionably yurman

"For precious stones, sapphires continue to reign for us, particularly blue Ceylon. For semiprecious, which of course is most of fashion, we saw a real trend in earth tones: browns, lighter greens, and smoky quartz. Leading that, of course, was Yurman."

- Michael Lebowitz, Royal Jewelers, Andover, Massachusetts

BRANDED GEMSTONE RINGS BY DAVID YURMAN, [phone].

rather be blue

"We sell all kinds of color well but for some reason it seems our customers gravitate toward blues, including sapphire, aquamarine, and London blue topaz in all classifications. Freshwater Chinese pearls in pink and other warmer, feminine tones do well in necklaces mixed with colored gems. One of the standouts in our designer jewelry has been Zeira. Sarni Zeira is a true master jeweler and each piece is executed with exceptional quality. His granulated designs and the stones he uses also are the best....