Fine jewellery

Only jewellery that is elaborately designed, and hand made using precious material including 14K above gold, platinum, palladium, sterling silver, diamond, cultured pearls, ruby, sapphire and emerald with some coloured gemstones are considered fine jewellery.

Any jewellery that uses artificial material or cheap material such as Swarovski crystals, glass and wood shall not be classified as fine jewellery. Traditionally fine jewellery denotes the hand made gem set jewellery, using diamond, pearls, colourful precious gems with 14K above gold, platinum and palladium. However today many luxury level fine jewellery brand such as Cartier, Tiffany, Bvlgari also offers sterling silver jewellery combined with colourful semi-precious stones.

In fact the fashion is very much in favour of bold and colourful cocktail style jewellery. Fine jewellery houses such as Cartier, Piaget, Bvlgari and Channel are all offering creatively designed, elaborately made bold and colourful cocktail rings, chunky necklaces and earrings.

Traditionally people buy fine jewellery for investment and sometimes for a special occasion to remember, and the jewellery will be passed on for generations. Nowadays the new fashion wave of colourful and bold designed jewellery are reviving the fine jewellery concept to make them not only for investment and keeping, but more importantly as a fashion accessory to match any outfit for any occasion. Independent women are no more satisfied with cheap costume jewellery for day to day accessories but more and more looking for real fine jewellery that offers an element of fashion to accessorize their outfit.

The best place to buy fine jewellery is from a traditional jeweller, as they all carry a rather complete range of different fine jewellery brands and categories. The most upper class department stores such as Harrods and Harvey Nichols in the UK have sections of fine jewellery but most of the department stores only offer fashion and costume jewellery, as selling fine jewellery demands a high level of jewellery knowledge and gemmological expertise. Nowadays some upper class art galleries and couture boutiques carry a range of fine jewellery too, mostly with distinctive design styles and taste, which can be very different from traditional fine jewellery found in jewellers. With the surge of internet shopping continuing, more and more jewellery online retailers sell expensive fine jewellery online too and prove to be very successful.

When buying fine jewellery, you need to make sure you buy from a highly experienced jeweller or renowned brand, to give you the fair quality for the money you pay. There are many companies offer cheap diamond and pearl jewellery with inherent poor quality and even fake items.