When I say that the material of jewellery is a question of status in Eastern Europe, I am not exaggerating. Now I am going to tell you some personal stories to prove it.
Story #1. Once my colleague has told me that her friends wondered why do I wear silver. “She is a doctor, they said, why doesn’t she wear gold? And by the way, they continued, why do you wear silver? You are 45 years old!”
Story #2. After the Easter lunch, my father-in-law scornfully looked at my beloved American vintage ear clips and brooch and told my husband, “Why don’t you buy her real gold? She doesn’t have gold, so she has to wear this childish knick-knackery!”
So, now you can see that I didn`t lie: people estimate your status according to the material of your jewellery. I am a doctor, so I must wear gold. She is 45 years old, so she must wear gold. Let us leave the silver for rebellious teenagers. Why is it so? Just because the gold is more expensive? Or are there any aspects other than price? I believe in the latter variant because there are exclusive designer jewellery pieces made of silver, which are worth much more than conventional golden rings or chains. Yes, gold can be more easily converted back into money than silver. Pawnshops pay about 100 times more for 1 g of gold than for 1 g of silver. So if you are selling your jewellery as scrap metal, not as a masterpiece, the difference is huge.
So, if you wear gold, it means you are wealthy. But where is the limit? If you wear too much gold, you would be contemptuously called “a gypsy”, because it is popularly believed that rich gypsies overindulge golden jewellery. Here one more interesting thread starts: the word “gypsy” originates from the world “Egypt”, and all of us know how massively ancient Egyptians used gold. Deborah Schorsch (a conservator, The Metropolitan Museum of Art) says that ancient Egyptians valued silver over gold because local sources of silver were scarce. So, maybe, they just used so much gold, because it was abundant in Nubia region?
The white gold is an additional topic to discuss. It looks like silver, but it is priced like gold. As I can notice, it did not gain the popularity of yellow gold among Ukrainian women, especially in those, who are older than 40. Maybe, this can be explained by the fact that white gold does not shout about the status and just whispers its price for the attentive people? Now it is time for another personal story.
Story # 3. When I and my future husband were preparing for the church marriage, we had visited the priest a month before to settle all the details. At that moment both of us never wore gold, so we wanted to buy silver wedding rings. But the priest said, “When Jesus was born, the Three Magi brought him gold, not silver. I can’t allow you to wear silver rings in church. If you don’t have money, I can borrow you two golden rings, and after wedding you will give them back and wear whatever you both want.” Then we decided on the wedding rings of white gold.
So, maybe, there is a deeply religious aspect in preferring gold to silver.
What is more fashionable now? It is hard to say. Nowadays designers and stylists mix and combine everything, so more and more people wear both at the same time, whereas it would be a complete mauvais ton in my mother’s youth. I have also seen advice to choose jewelry according to the skin tone: if you have a cold skin tone, it is better to wear silver, and if you have a warm skin tone, your material is gold. It applies to the people with black skin too, they just have to use different methods to assess their skin tone.
In my opinion, the concepts “golden jewelry means wealth” and “you look cheap in the cheap bijouterie” are the parts of the great paradigm of placing virtual price tags on people according to their appearance including clothes and ornamentations. This paradigm should be finally abandoned. Talking about my personal stories, all of them are about freedom. People should be able to select jewelry exceptionally according to their budget and their taste without any thoughts like “Does it suit my age, marital status, and profession?”
Text: Larysa Strilchuk