the times | Wednesday November 18 2020 1GT 7

fashion

of gold vermeil at the end of their

respective rainbows include Monica

Vinader and Otiumberg. Standout

pieces for me include Monica

Vinader’s chunky chain bracelet

with a pearl pendant (£320,

monicavinader.com) and Otiumberg’s

mini chunky twist hoops (£120,

otiumberg.com). Another homegrown

brand, Alighieri, uses gold-plating on

silver to create modernist, naturalistic

beauties such as its Trembling Bough

ring (£225, available to pre-order,

alighieri.co.uk).

Now there’s even vermeil on

the high street, in the form of the

excellent new collection from

Z for Accessorize. Its constellation

necklace — the pendant patterned

with your chosen star sign,

rendered in white topaz stones

— is a snip, not to mention

a superlative Santa move

(£35, reduced from £50,

accessorize.com).

Even the fake stuff on the

high street — try Mango and

Zara — is worth a try these

days. It has come on so much

since my first attempts at faking

it that now you are more

likely to turn others

green with envy

than to turn green

yourself. Result.

Instagram:

@timesfashiondesk

Above: moonstone

locket necklace set,

£285 (missoma.com);

earrings, £

(otiumberg.com)

that. As for this year — challenging

and some for all brands — it has still

managed to deliver double-digit

growth so far, although it won’t be

drawn on precisely what those

digits are.

Missoma now has an extremely

natty online layering lab, which

enables you to pick by chain length

and give your — ahem — curation,

another newly ubiquitous turn of

phrase, a trial run on an imaginary

decolletage. Or you can buy a ready-

curated layering set, which works out

cheaper than buying pieces separately.

Where to begin? Perhaps with the

stunning aegis opalite pendant set,

a long chunky chain with a spherical

pendant contrasting with a smaller,

finer one (£325, reduced from

£370 if you buy separately,

missoma.com). I can’t think of

a better present for a new job

— or a new anything else for

that matter — than the good

luck moonstone locket set, said

locket ornamenting the longer

chain this time, the shorter

one with a charm in the

form of a cross-

fingered hand

(£285, reduced

from £310).

Other

British

brands

with a pot

I

have always had a thing about

gold jewellery. Not that gold

was actually what I wore as a

teenager in the 1980s. There was

the knuckleduster ring that

turned my finger green and was

so shoddily made that it would

develop an inexplicable dent or

three if you so much as looked at it.

There were the assorted earrings,

some of which also turned me — by

which I mean my lobes — green,

some yellow, blue or black. Nice.

This might be part of the reason

every single one of my friends back

then stuck to silver. Yet I don’t think

that was all that was going on. Gold

jewellery — proper gold — was for

wedding rings, and for women of the

age to be wearing wedding rings.

It was in very good taste: low-key,

classical. Although there was another

variety that was considered to be in

very bad taste; trashy, not classy.

That wasn’t for girls like me either.

It was silver that was cool, that was

young; that looked as if it might have

been picked up during one’s travels

in India, even if one hadn’t made it

further south than the Watford Gap.

Unless you were a bit of a weirdo —

me! — who a) favoured all things

Italian, including her jewellery

preferences, and b) didn’t mind

changing colour like a chameleon

to do so.

It’s all change, change of the bullion

variety. Because these days all the

cool young girls wear gold. And all

the cool old ones do too; not in the

way their mothers did, but in their

way their daughters do. Which means,

above all, multistrand necklace

curations, aka the #neckmess.

Why? Partly it’s because

contemporary fashion likes to bend

the rules. The very fact that gold

chains and hoop earrings used to be

deemed infra dig is what’s led to them

becoming so widely, er, dug. Even

medallions have come in from the

cold. Ratners could have been doing

a roaring trade, if Gerald hadn’t

foot-in-mouthed it in 1991.

There’s a simplicity and flexibility to

chains, in particular, that makes them

easy to wear. Proper jewellery — for

which read sparkly stuff — can be

difficult to make work with your

wardrobe, especially when it comes

to necklines. That’s why — in super-

rich circles — there’s even something

called “jewellery dressing”, dark of hue

and low of neckline.

A fine chain or three, in contrast,

can work with anything. Not that this

means they are bland. They can be

layered up into an agglomeration

that feels particular to you; can

even — if you add in a memory-

conjuring locket here and there

— tell your story, just in the way

a charm bracelet used to do.

There’s another reason behind the

rise of gold. Because a lot of this gold

is not, in fact, gold in the strictest

sense, it’s gold vermeil. Which,

according to Marisa Hordern of the

British jewellery brand Missoma, is

“basically a fancy way of saying

micron plating”. What’s so special

about vermeil, aside from the fact

that it sounds French? “It has to be on

silver, and there has to be a minimum

thickness of gold, and because it is

a form of electrolysis,” (Oh, is it?),

“it’s all about how that gold is fused

to the silver.”

It’s Missoma more than any other

brand that has turned Britain into

a goldie-lookin-chain nation since its

launch in 2008. “I wanted the look,

finish and longevity of fine jewellery

at an affordable price point,” Hordern

says. “When I discovered gold

vermeil I knew it could deliver what

I wanted.” There was just one problem.

“No one had even heard of it back

then. People kept asking me what it

was. It took seven years to get it into

the mainstream.”

Indeed. Now it’s so mainstream that

it even has its own category. Cue

French terminology No 2: demi-fine,

which encompasses not just vermeil,

but — wait for it — “everyday

diamonds”. (Which are both

manifold and minute.) Demi-

fine is, Hordern says, “designed

to be worn layered up, either

casually or dressily. And

that layering is about

expressing your identity, your

individuality.” It’s demi-fine that

enables a woman such as me —

with the taste, but not the budget

for gold — to make like Chrysus,

the Greek spirit of gold. (Who

was, needless to say, female.)

And there are lots of women like

me. Missoma grew by 70 per cent last

year, by 100 per cent the year before

Bling is in! How gold got cool

Once it was either

frumpy or trashy,

while silver was

the hipper option.

Not any more, says

Anna Murphy

Gold

chains

and hoop

earrings

used to be

deemed

infra dig

(

h

ddd

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Amber Heard and, right, Marisa

Hordern. Below right: Naomi Ackie