Somehow it seems Perfectly Proper to follow up the last column about jewelry for a lady with something about Perfectly Proper jewelry for a gentleman. Etiquetteer was so excited, planning to refer to Emily Post, Esquire Etiquette for Men, and the late Walter Hoving of Tiffany . . . only to realize with some chagrin that Etiquetteer already wrote that column, last year in volume 18. So if you’d like to know especially about jewelry a gentleman can wear with evening clothes, please go back and read that. Let’s talk about finger rings instead.
Conservative good taste demands that a gentleman’s jewelry be inconspicuous; that word turns up a lot. Indeed, there are some ultra-conservatives who believe a gentleman doesn’t wear jewelry at all except for a watch and a wedding ring. The character of Uncle Matthew in Nancy Mitford’s novels goes so far as to use a leather strap for his gunmetal pocket watch and “gnashes his teeth” at a gentleman with a pearl-and-platinum evening watch chain. But Etiquetteer is not so forbidding of ornamentation as that!
The subtext of all this self-effacement seems to be that Nice Men Don’t Sparkle, because the second rule about not being conspicuous is that a gentleman never wears diamonds. At all, ever. It was thought of as vulgar. Margaret Case Harriman’s mother, when she broke her engagement with a suitor, returned the engagement ring* but not another jewel he gave her. This was “a ten-dollar gold piece made into a brooch and heavily encrusted with the initials ‘P.D. Jr.’ in diamonds.” She said that she kept it because he used it as a scarf pin. “I simply couldn’t have a man I was once even slightly engaged to going around with diamonds all over his chest.”**
But why should this be the case? What made diamonds on men vulgar? Etiquetteer is inclined to agree with M.H. Dunlop, the author of Gilded City: Scandal and Sensation in Turn-of-the-Century New York, that this was a reaction to diamonds having become too accessible after a depression in price after 1874. If everybody’s doing it, can it really be in the best of taste? And yet one of the most classic (and conservative) designs for a gentleman’s ring is that of a black onyx set in gold with a small diamond at its center.
Classic and conservative.
While one does see more men wearing diamonds these days, even some of them acknowledge that it isn’t really Perfectly Proper. Augusten Burroughs and his husband chose large vintage diamond rings for their wedding rings, but Mr. Burroughs Himself acknowledged to Out that “Most self-respecting men would not wear diamond rings as large and flashy as these.” His late Victorian cabochon-cut sapphire ring shown in this New York Times article shows much more traditional taste.
This sterling silver and fire agate ring came from the Grand Canyon.
Perfect Propriety suggests that a gentleman wear only a wedding ring — usually only a very plain gold band, worn on the fourth finger in the United States*** — and perhaps another, like a signet ring, only on the pinky finger. “ . . . and even a ring ought to mean something,” says Esquire Etiquette for Men of 1953, “like a wedding ring, or a signet ring bearing a coat of arms he’s really entitled to.” To Etiquetteer, “mean something” would certainly relate to the giver or previous owner. Before the coronavirus pandemic, Etiquetteer often wore this simple silver ring set with a fire agate, an heirloom of Dear Mother’s family. But with so much hand-washing now required, Etiquetteer has stopped wearing it.
But for many gentlemen, their high school or college graduation ring is the “only other” ring they wear. The typical style is most often gigantic on any hand, and excessively incised with inscriptions and symbols. They are often set with a gemstone, real or fake, en cabochon or faceted. (You can see images here at Herff Jones, one of the big school ring makers.) They are so ubiquitous that they don’t seem very distinctive. Contrast those with the unique graduation ring of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, known as the Brass Rat. By replacing a gemstone with a relief of the school mascot, a beaver, a symbol instantly identifiable the world over was created. Now that’s how to stand out without being flashy about it!
Etiquetteer didn’t even get to discuss things like cufflinks, chains (both watch and neck), or earrings - perhaps another time. Etiquetteer will leave you to the reaction of a board of directors to a presenter after his hasty arrival, presentation, and departure (without taking questions): “Who was that man with six visible pieces of jewelry?” Not a Perfectly Proper impression to make!
*This is really the most Perfectly Proper thing to do. Ladies who suggest that they’ve “earned it” open themselves up to Unpleasant Insinuations.
**This charming story, and many others, found in Margaret Case Harriman’s delightful memoir Blessed Are the Debonair.
***Emily Post actually suggested in early editions that the wedding ring also be worn on the pinky finger, but that’s not something that ever caught on in the States.