For National Jewel Day, a few words about how to wear your jewels with Perfect Propriety.
You are a unique individual, not a Jewelry Display System. Jewelry serves you well when it brings focus to you, not to itself. Choose with discretion. The old advice to put on everything you think is right and take one piece off remains good advice. (Joan Crawford demonstrates this in Possessed of 1931. The mistress of a powerful politician [Clark Gable], she briefly retreats to her bedroom to subtract a couple jewels before the arrival of one of Gable’s friends with his wife.)
Not that people wear gloves much these days, but jewelry is never worn over gloves, especially rings. Opera star Lucrezia Bori said “. . . in a taxicab it is wise to cover the rings and bracelets, whether they are real or not,” probably to dissuade thieves.* Bridal websites suggest that brides concerned about their engagement rings turn the ring upside-down before putting on gloves.** If you have rings with exceptionally large stones, a) well, good for you, b) try turning them upside-down, c) keep them in your purse to put on when you remove your gloves, or d) just don’t wear them with gloves. Emily Post, however, would not have approved of that. When she wrote “ . . . she much prefers wearing rings to gloves” in 1922, under the heading “Vulgar Clothes,” it wasn’t because she thought it was a good idea.
The rules about appropriate jewelry for men are less rigid than they used to be. Opals, for instance, were once considered too fragile and feminine for a man, but are now often seen. And more than a few dandies have begun adding brooches to their lapels.
That said, although diamonds are more often seen on men, Etiquetteer still sides with the late Walter Hoving against them. (One can only imagine how he would have reacted to see Tiffany & Co. advertising diamond engagement rings for men.)
Just in case you have a private audience with the Pope, anything beyond wedding and engagement rings and jewelry actually fastening your clothes is Not Perfectly Proper.
All that said, Etiquetteer wishes you discreetly exuberant enjoyment of your jewels!
Joan Crawford in Possessed (1931).
*The New American Etiquette, by Lila Haxworth Wallace (1941), page 111.
**One such article is here.