Why more men are wearing jewellery

A wedding ring may be the only jewellery that many men habitually wear, but a growing number are embracing earrings, necklaces and other such accessories.

According to Euromonitor, the global value of the men's luxury jewellery market reached around $7.3 billion (£5.8 billion) in 2023 – an annual increase of 7.3% that "outpaces" the 4.6% growth in the women's market, said Vogue Business.

Glittering history

The popularity of jewellery for men has "waxed and waned over millennia", said fashion writer Shane Kurup in The Telegraph. After opening Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, Howard Carter discovered "that the boy king had pierced ears". And the ancient Persian capital Persepolis is decorated with engravings of warriors "with dangling lobe ornaments".

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Earrings were also a "male preserve" among the "movers and shakers of 16th century Europe". Sir Walter Raleigh was "fond of a sizeable pearl earring", as was Charles I, who is "believed to have worn his prize teardrop into battle".

In the 1980s, jewellery-wearing "pop poster boys from George Michael to Billy Idol" helped to bring earrings back into fashion, and in the 2000s, "metrosexual icon" David Beckham made diamond studs a "must-have among chaps who would have baulked at them before". 

Now, a new generation of "Gen Z catnip like Paul Mescal, Shawn Mendes and Rege-Jean Page" is taking up the mantle.

The new gem-fluencers

Never underestimate the influence of pop culture, said Rhik Samadder in The Guardian. The "simple chain worn by sensitive beefcake Paul Mescal" in his role as Connell in the 2020 BBC adaptation of "Normal People" became a "cultural phenomenon" that "inspired a song, its own Instagram account, and still shines as a symbol of our lockdown thirst". 

The signet ring worn by Leo Woodall in the Netflix romcom "One Day" looks set to be "this year’s Connell's chain". And men are also drawing inspiration from Timothée Chalamet's "Cartier candy-inspired necklace" and "Jacob Elordi's thermometer-busting eyebrow piercing" in "Saltburn". 

Reinventing the classics

After hosting Sotheby's first sale dedicated to men's jewellery last year in New York, the auction house's vice-chair of jewellery, Frank Everett, told the Financial Times that "even very traditional guys" will now wear a tie pin or lapel pin, which are a "great way to dress up a suit".

London jeweller Darren Sherwood, of the Mr Sherwood brand, is also a proponent of the pin. While men's watches can be pricey and are often hidden under cuffs, lapel and tie pins offer "subtle ways that men can show off their style", he said.

Daniel Todd, buying director at Mr Porter, told the paper that the online fashion retailer had seen sales of tie bars more than double between January and October last year, compared with the same period in 2022  – an increase that he attributed to a post-pandemic "return to more formal dress codes".