The world's most savvy designers boldly delve into a wealth of hues this season to deftly blend elegance with femininity. What's more, jewelry designers are following suit with scintillating colors and designs that promise to be endlessly fashionable.
Top amongst the season's colors is green - with shades from sage to moss, grass and hunter coming to life. Other important autumnal shades include yellow (from straw to lemon and bittersweet), orange (from peach to pumpkin and burnt orange), and tones of rich pink and purple.
Needless to say, jewelers are turning to a brilliant array of gemstone and diamond combinations to achieve the season's looks. For striking greens of all hues, jewelry designers predominantly turn this fall to emerald, peridot and tourmaline. The most precious stone and the truest of green in tone is the emerald, which is most often paired with diamonds for a dramatic appeal. Tourmaline is another favorite because of its rich green shade, and peridot - a stone that was prized by the ancient Egyptians for its power to ward off nightmares and evil - is popular for its paler hues. Another green stone, first discovered in Tanzania in the mid 1960s, is tsavorite. This stone, a member of the garnet family, is bright in hue and offers a striking vibrancy that we know you can't resist.
Yellow is extremely evocative and most exacting when interpreted with yellow sapphires or diamonds, whose hues are brilliant and alluring. Backing these precious stones, however, are citrine (whose name stems from the French word for lemon) amber and topaz - each of which offers a pleasing palette ranging from pale to dark in tone.
Jewelry designers are also reaching new creative heights this season in the world of orange, where a recent find of mandarin garnet has opened new doors. This stone is particularly brilliant and best emulates nature's orange. Other shades of orange are achieved using the strikingly vivid orange sapphire (a rare cousin to the popular blue sapphire), Madeira citrine and fire opals.
The season's purples and pinks are extremely satisfying in amethyst, pink sapphire and pink tourmaline - each of which conveys a feeling of warmth and sensuality. Another delight of the season: a mixture of many shades of sapphires in a shimmering rainbow of fall colors for bewitching beauty.
Graduate Gemologist, GIA
Certified Appraiser