Annoushka Ducas is working on what will be a first for her 16-year-old gold jewellery brand: a collection of silver pieces. “It’s appealing to this changing demographic of Gen Z coming up who, certainly at the moment, can’t afford gold,” says the British jewellery designer.
She says the line will also suit clients who want to gift jewellery to their children or godchildren but for whom “the cost of gold is a bit prohibitive at that level”. The new “versatile and luxurious” designs, based on one of her existing gold collections, will launch in September.
Annoushka is not alone among fine jewellery brands in turning to silver this year on the back of soaring gold prices. Sales figures suggest these launches are tapping into consumer demand.
The price of gold hit a record high in April, exceeding $3,500 per troy ounce. It was $3,420 at the end of June, compared with $2,328 at the same time last year. The price of silver has also risen but, at $36 per ounce, is nearly 100 times cheaper than gold.
Price is not the only attraction of silver, which has enjoyed a strong presence on catwalks this year. Hirsh London, which launched the first sterling silver pieces in its 45-year history last month, has collaborated with Ozwald Boateng on a jewellery collection to mark the British designer’s 40 years in the fashion industry. Eight pieces, designed by Boateng and made by Hirsh, which is selling the pieces, are inspired by African Adinkra symbols and Kente patterns. They feature diamonds, gemstones and Tahitian pearls, and are available in gold as a bespoke order. Boateng wore the silver and diamond Hope chain necklace, and silver and sapphire bracelet, to this year’s Met Gala in New York.
American jewellery designer Nina Runsdorf celebrated the 20th anniversary of her eponymous brand by releasing her first silver collection, Archive, earlier this year. She designed the 15 chunky sterling silver pieces to have cross-generational appeal at an “affordable” cost ($375-$1,500). “I got lucky that, because the gold prices are so high, it was the perfect timing for it,” says Runsdorf.
The pieces are based on jewellery she created as a teenager, but tweaked in some cases to incorporate brown topaz. Designing in silver was a “very big change” for Runsdorf, whose brand previously used 18-carat gold or platinum. “Silver is very different [in] the way it polishes, the softness [and] how the stones are set, so it took about a year to be able to do production on it,” says Runsdorf. “It was a learning experience.”
British goldsmith and artist Joy Bonfield-Colombara, known as Joy BC, works in many materials. She thinks that as silver comes to the fore on the back of high gold prices, it will help raise appreciation of the skill working in it can require. Silver is softer than most gold alloys, and can be more challenging to solder as the heat cannot be focused in the same way because silver conducts heat more rapidly.
“It’s actually harder sometimes to work in silver than it is in gold, and I don’t think a lot of people realise that,” she says. “It’s because perhaps there was more production, more availability of silver, that then it’s perceived as less valuable.” Some of Bonfield-Colombara’s silver and bronze pieces are more expensive than those in gold, she adds, because of the time spent on them or because they are a limited edition.
For the Artemis necklace she made in 2022, one of her largest pieces to date, Bonfield-Colombara carved a portrait pendant from fine silver because of its moonlike, “light, luminescent quality”. This hangs from an 18-carat yellow gold torque. “I’m using solid gold and solid silver together,” she says. “So that in itself is saying I don’t have a hierarchy of which material is more important.”
Moon Pebbles, the first silver collection from jewellery designer Pippa Small in her more than 30 years in the industry, plays on the reflective nature of highly polished sterling silver. It is made by artisans in Afghanistan in partnership with the charity Turquoise Mountain.
The jeweller typically produces gold-plated designs in Afghanistan but decided to leave these pieces as textured silver. “In a time of great darkness and world chaos there felt something clean and pure about it; this silvery moon-ish light,” she says. Since launching in May, the collection has sold “incredibly well”, says Small, who intends to release more silver designs.
The volume of silver jewellery sold by Otiumberg was up 300 per cent in the first five months of this year, compared with the same period in 2024. The demi-fine jewellery brand increased the number of silver designs it stocked from 42 to 66 year on year. Silver accounted for 20 per cent of its sales volume in January-May, compared with 8 per cent in the same period last year.
Meanwhile, the number of silver pieces sold at fine jewellery shop ætla in Edinburgh doubled in the year to the end of May. Owner Keira Wraae-Stewart had previously considered downsizing her silver offering in favour of higher-value gold and platinum. Instead, in response to customer demand, over the past three years she has increased her selection of “very artistic” silver designs by brands including Brighton-based The Ouze and Danish jeweller Pernille Holm.
While she thinks the rising cost of gold has played a part, Wraae-Stewart says “that cool tone metal is being asked after a lot more than it has historically . . . we even have it with engagement rings at the moment”. She says these requests are driven by preference rather than price.
For jewellers, silver offers the chance to work at a larger scale than they might be able to in gold. “It’s really lovely to go back into silver and be able to be more experimental, make much bigger pieces and then also have them affordable,” says Scottish jeweller Sarah Brown, who launched her first silver collection in about a decade in May.
She had been concentrating on the wedding market. However, as she developed her gold collection Flow, she created samples in silver to push her technique and thought some could translate into pieces for sale. The result is the Silver Flow line of silver and gold-plated jewellery.
Brown thinks this will “open up a different customer base” for her work and cater to tourists who visit her studio on the Isle of Islay. A silver lining to the rising cost of gold.