Buying Fine Jewellery

I am so glad that women are now going away from fashion jewellery and moving towards fine jewellery made from precious metals like gold and platinum.

Fashion jewellery, while more affordable, also discolours, activates skin allergies, breaks, and needs more care. You cannot shower with it and you definitely cannot wear it all day, everyday. Sure, it comes in fun designs that you can change all the time but do you want to change your jewellery all the time?

Fine jewellery is expensive. That's the only con I can think about. It stays the same despite using it many, many months at a stretch and can be passed down through generations. I love that.

The issue I see though is that many women, due to social media, are thinking that fine jewellery = Cartier/Van Cleef & Arpels/Bulgari. And this is such a shame. Most of us cannot afford rare/high jewellery collections from these brands (which cost tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars). The most we can afford is the popular Love Collection from Cartier, the Alhambra Collection from VCA etc. And I am so tired of seeing these on every single woman out there. Half a dozen designs are replicated thousands and thousands of times and everyone ends up looking the same.

The price of these designs is vulgar. For 18K gold, most of the price is paid towards the brand and not the gold. Only about 15% to 25% of the total price is for the gold. The remaining is for the brand. How sad is that?!

Instead of this, imagine going to the local jeweller and picking up a unique design and just paying for the gold and 10% on top for the jeweller (AKA making charges). You will get a much better value, something no one else has, and you will be supporting a local/small business. It is like supporting Starbucks or your local coffee shop. I would always want to get coffee from a local brand.

After saying all of this, let me tell you that I am no different. I have a Cartier Trinity ring (best fidget ring design out there) but I have learnt from my experience and now get my jewellery from the brands in Gold City (which is the fine jewellery mall in Bahrain).