Quiet Luxury: The Hidden Gem Trend Redefining Relaxed Opulence in Jewelry

As summer approaches, it may be the most suitable season for the Quiet Luxury style. In terms of both color and design, “Less is More” inherently brings a sense of coolness.

The most fitting jewelry for this style is a kind of “hidden brilliance.” As a result, many jewelry brands have recently begun to become more subdued, setting gemstones in unexpected places, carefully concealing that color and brilliance. They wait for people to appreciate them carefully before beginning to shine, emphasizing an element of unexpected surprise!

Quiet Luxury, which can be translated as “silent luxury aesthetics” or simply “quiet luxury,” is actually a retro trend, perhaps considered an updated version of “Less is More.”

When mentioning this concept, people often think of Coco Chanel’s signature style. However, it’s actually an aesthetic concept derived from architectural design, first proposed by Ludwig Mies, the German architect and director of the Bauhaus school, emphasizing streamlined structural design, spatial fluidity, and functionality.

It’s not new for jewelry designers to draw inspiration from architectural design. They reduce excessive decoration, focusing more on the overall silhouette of the jewelry, and use simple settings in minimalist geometric shapes to highlight the color and clarity of high-quality gemstones. The resulting works naturally exude an understated elegant aura.

Jewelry in the “Quiet Luxury” style shies away from overly brilliant and ornate designs, preferring to hide sparkling gemstones and reveal that luxury unexpectedly. This hidden brilliance emphasizes a sense of luxurious relaxation—no need to show off, just be cool!

Peruvian designer Ina Beissner is well-versed in this approach. In her Hidden Diamonds series, she creates concise spherical silhouettes in yellow and white gold, cleverly setting diamonds on the sides or inner walls of the jewelry. When worn, the diamonds’ sparkle is revealed from time to time depending on the wearer’s movements.

Ina Beissner says, “I find this unconventional diamond placement interesting because it unexpectedly reveals brilliance, easily creating a sense of surprise. For me, hidden diamonds represent a kind of understated personal luxury, jewelry worn for oneself.”

Another jewelry designer who creates a sense of understated elegance with diamonds is Nigora Tokhtabayeva, who founded her own jewelry brand, Tabayer. Her inspiration comes from her family: her architect father, fashion designer mother, and grandmother who loved amulets.

As a result, her works possess the silhouette of modernist sculptures, a fashion-forward sensibility that’s easy to match, and her signature Oera series, which serves as her personal amulet, consisting of interconnected knots.

She says, “I approach each piece of jewelry as if creating a miniature sculpture. For the Oera series, our focus wasn’t on making the diamonds stand out and shine, but on how the diamonds interact with the entire piece. It’s a dialogue between different elements.”

Tabayer’s designs are bold and substantial. Women who appreciate jewelry with a strong presence quickly discovered this brand, including Meghan Markle, who clearly finds this understated luxury suits her style.

The Italian jewelry brand Vherner had a similar aesthetic concept when designing the Sopresa bracelet. These bracelets appear to be bold, pure gold bangles when on display, but when worn, the bracelet splits into several golden segments, each revealing a brilliant or vibrant surprise on the connecting sides.

This requires exceptional setting and sculpting skills from craftsmen to achieve such a seamless design.

Angela Camurati founded the Vherner goldsmith workshop in 1984. They mastered a special technique in Italian goldsmithing called mirror polishing. Their special gold alloy can produce mirror-gold surfaces larger than normal sizes. After a long and meticulous handcrafting process, this polished mirror surface reflects bright light, perfectly flawless and without gaps.

Therefore, many of their signature pieces are made of gold, creating sculptural designs with large volumes, but always with some “hidden” detailed designs, like the Sopresa bracelet, revealing brilliance unexpectedly.

For example, the classic tourbillon ring, composed of two rings with a unique layered feel, is sometimes made entirely of the brand’s pride mirror-polished gold, but often combines different materials. Designers sometimes quietly set diamonds along the edges, revealing just a touch of brilliance.

The classic Pirouette ring follows the same approach, with hidden diamond settings that are seamlessly integrated with the gold. This kind of relaxed luxury gives the wearer a natural and comfortable jewelry attitude.

Because these pieces have no sharp edges and feature solid shapes, only careful appreciation reveals the hidden splendor. Essentially, it aims to showcase not the sparkle of diamonds, but the seamless transition technique between materials.

Jewelry has always been the perfect choice for tokens of love, and love has always been a romance belonging to just two people. Therefore, secret message jewelry has been a mainstream trend since the Victorian era, not to mention Napoleon’s use of military code skills to create love message jewelry when showing off his affection.

Often, sweetness only needs to be known by two people – another form of quiet luxury, or, shall we say, a subtle way of sharing love.

For example, the Spanish jewelry brand Carrera Y Carrera excels in creating this type of hidden love jewelry. This brand has always enjoyed drawing inspiration from ancient myths, poetry, and legends, and is particularly adept at symbolism. Their Infinito wedding ring series incorporates hidden gemstones to enhance the emotional value of the pieces.

As everyone knows, this brand’s specialty is goldsmithing, particularly excelling in using different gold tones and rich texture effects to delicately showcase the design theme. Therefore, they are very skilled at creating layered effects, much like the gradual progression of emotions, the interplay of realistic colors, followed by the expression of love through engraved patterns, and finally, the climactic vow represented by an unchanging brilliant diamond.

Of course, these secrets can only be appreciated when you take off the ring. When you wear it, only you can feel the hidden brilliance of love.

Hattie Rickards has considerable expertise in this area. This is a custom jewelry brand founded by jewelry designers Hattie Rickards and Sarah Ysabel Narici, specializing in incorporating personal touches through hidden gemstones.

According to Hattie Rickards, this is a great way to create love jewelry. Many of her clients want a “Personal Touch” when customizing engagement rings. She suggests incorporating the partner’s birthstone or a family “heirloom.” She says, “I make these emotionally significant gemstones more subtle, so the partner will have a greater sense of surprise when discovering them.”

For instance, in the Jimmy ring, a circle of emeralds, the groom’s birthstone, is hidden beneath three diamonds. Hattie Rickards has many techniques for “hiding” these gemstones, creating various changes and effects.

She also designed a 10th anniversary pendant for a couple, carrying the happy memories of their entire family. It’s a reversible pendant with an enamel-engraved pattern on the front, subtly set with a champagne diamond, while the back is set with birthstones representing all five family members.

Some collectors who pursue “quiet luxury” jewelry do so to record their life insights, believing that jewelry is the best medium. It’s a personal time capsule, preserving your most precious memories, and therefore should naturally be understated and quiet, as these memory fragments represent the most intimate emotions.

The French jewelry brand Sève, founded by designer Alice Bigourd, likes to use diamonds in hidden places – on the sides or edges of jewelry, which has become her signature style. The designer believes that these diamonds set on the edges serve as a reminder to the wearer that we all have inner light.

Moreover, these special placements cleverly enhance the beauty of the piece from various angles. Whether worn or taken off, whether viewed from above, the side, or straight on, one can see the brilliant light.

Combined with Alice Bigourd’s layered curves, inspired by nature – shells, mountains, and water reflections – beautiful curves are everywhere. By abstracting and summarizing them, the most natural beauty is achieved. The hidden diamonds set on the edges represent the ever-changing charm of light and shadow brought by the sun.

Sarah Ysabel Narici, founder of the New York jewelry brand DYNE, also employs a similar approach in her creations: “Most of my pieces have little Easter eggs for the client. Mysterious symbols, icons, or silent patterns that only the owner can understand or see.”

Her signature design is the DYNE ring, inspired by signet rings from the Mesopotamian era around 3500 BC. She engraves stars and moons, spirit snakes, constellations, infinity symbols, hieroglyphs, and even uses Chinese characters to create her own code, becoming a private totem with mysterious power. Various gemstones and diamonds are merely elements in the code, understated and hidden.

The rings she designs with large gemstones also hide secrets. She always uses gemstones in places that only the wearer can see, considering this a kind of intimacy and understanding unique to lovers. The designer often hides smaller pavé-set diamonds on the inner wall of the ring, visible only when the ring is removed and turned over.

After seeing so many “hidden brilliances,” don’t you feel these designers are masters at creating surprises? For many introverted collectors, perhaps this “quiet luxury” design is the jewelry that meets their needs. Some splendor only needs to be known by oneself, like a small happiness keeping a secret, to be quietly enjoyed.

Quiet Luxury: The Hidden Gem Trend Redefining Relaxed Opulence in Jewelry

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