The Most Popular Jewelry Trends in the USA
From the most popular jewellery pieces to our favourite metals to wear, discover the jewelry trends to know (and wear) right now
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The Most Popular Jewelry Trends in the USA
From the most popular jewellery pieces to our favourite metals to wear, discover the jewelry trends to know (and wear) right now
Throughout history and across different cultures, jewelry has become the perfect accessory, a treasured gift, and an enduring symbol of admiration and love. In fact, Americans spent 69 billion dollars on jewelry last year.
But which pieces are loved the most? We’ve taken it upon ourselves to do some digging, to find out the most popular traditional, classic and luxury jewelry trends favored across the United States, from our favorite jewelry pieces to the most popular metals and gemstones.
We gathered our data through studying popular search terms on Google related to different types of jewelry, as well as metals and precious and semi-precious gemstones. Note: we defined ‘obsession’ simply as the sum of all jewelry-related searches from each state. We then adjusted this based on each state’s population to avoid skewing our findings towards the largest states. Then, we converted our findings into scores from 1 to 100 for each category, and created a final overall score out of a maximum possible score of 100, which you can see in the table below.
New York Is the Most Jewelry-Obsessed State in America
Once our research was complete we combined our findings across each type of jewelry we studied. New York shone brightly at the top of our overall table, consistently scoring among the highest in each category of jewelry type, metals, and gemstones, and with the highest overall scores across all categories.
We also discovered that the perfect gift for a New Yorker is a diamond and silver tennis bracelet.
Second on our overall list of most jewelry-obsessed states was the great state of California. The Golden State certainly lives up to its name and its gold-rush heritage by selecting gold as its favorite jewelry item. California’s overall score placed it very close to New York and even generated the top scores in several categories of our study.
In the opposite corner of the nation was our third most jewelry-obsessed state; Texas. The Lone Star state favoured chains and nose jewelry over the other states in our top three, and Texas residents showed a preference for metal jewelry over gemstones. All things considered, Texas narrowly beat out Georgia for its top three position in our overall ranking of most jewelry-obsessed State.
AT THE TOP
The Most Popular Jewelry Types in the United States
It’s clear, gold chains are by far the most popular type of jewelry in the US, as simple gold chains were the most favored choice across 30 US states. In second place came the Cuban link chain, just another, slightly more intricate form of the classic gold chain, which was the most popular piece of jewelry in six states. The classic diamond ring is the top choice in five states, followed by the pearl necklace in four states, while tennis bracelets and turquoise jewelry were each the most popular type in three states.
Interestingly enough, there were some clear regional trends, too. Cuban link chains were the preferred option for several southern states, while the popularity of tennis bracelets correlates highly with the nation's political and financial capitals of Washington D.C. and New York.
We also wanted to see which states were obsessed with luxury jewelry items. To do this, we examined separately search terms that included the word ‘luxury’. This meant we could make a distinction between a search like ‘diamond ring’ and one for ‘luxury diamond ring’. When we examined the data through this lens, we found that Vermont topped the rankings with Wyoming and Alaska close behind.
| STATE | MOST POPULAR JEWELRY TYPE |
|---|---|
| ALASKA | GOLD CHAIN |
| CALIFORNIA | GOLD CHAIN |
| NEW YORK | TENNIS BRACELET |
| WASHINGTON DC | TENNIS BRACELET |
| WISCONSIN | DIAMOND RING |
| VERMONT | PEARL NECKLACE |
OUT OF THE BOX
The Most Popular Jewelry Item in the United States
When we looked at the range of jewelry types across the US, it was clear that New York is the most jewelry-obsessed state in the country, with California and Texas close behind.
New York topped our lists across several categories of jewelry, as the biggest lovers of bracelets, earrings, and rings. Massachusetts scored second in rings, with New Jersey taking second place for bracelets and California in second place for earrings.
Outside New York, the country is more evenly split on its favorite jewelry items. Chains are the most popular type of jewelry in Hawaii, while California prefers timeless luxury necklaces. We reviewed many styles of necklaces from elegant pendants and lockets to stylish chokers.
In the South, nose jewelry is the most popular choice in North Carolina and Georgia.
FIND A GEM
The Most Popular Gemstones in the United States
Jewelry is nothing without the jewels, so, of course, we looked at the most popular gemstones around the country. Our data showed it to be a tight race. When we ranked the search volumes by popularity, we found diamonds were the nation’s favorite. As the USA accounts for 53.6% of the global diamond market, this should not come as a surprise.
In second place was moissanite, a synthetic gemstone which can offer even greater clarity than a diamond. Diamonds, however, still retain their romantic legacy. Perhaps this shows that diamonds are being saved for special occasions, such as engagement rings, rather than being worn as an everyday piece.
Third on our list of most popular gemstones were pearls. Pearls may not technically be a gemstone, as they are formed via a biological-mineral rather than chemical-mineral process, but we made sure to include them in our survey too.
After accounting for population differences between the states, Massachusetts is revealed to be the state with the biggest appetite for gemstones, followed closely by Ohio, and with Colorado in third place. New Mexico ranked turquoise the highest of all gemstones we surveyed. This is unsurprising since turquoise and silver jewelry have long been popular in the southwest.
Ohio selected diamonds as their favorite gemstone of choice, while Massachusetts scored four different stones as equally worthy of first place; aquamarine, emerald, ruby, and sapphire. Hawaii, the only US state surrounded entirely by water, ranked pearls first.
When it comes to precious metals, gold is the most popular choice across the country. Gold’s characteristic warmth, malleability and resistance to tarnishing has long made it a premier choice of jewelry makers from around the world. California favored gold the most in our survey, with Ohio and Florida close behind.
One big surprise our research uncovered was that Ohio considered stainless steel the most desirable metal for jewelry. Silver was the first choice of Massachusetts, Hawaii preferred platinum over other metals, and copper and pewter were both the first love of Wyoming.
Overall, when we looked at precious metals in isolation (gold, silver and platinum), we found that California prized these the most, followed by Ohio and Massachusetts. The data showed it was a close race for these top three positions.
The table below shows the top 20 states ranked in terms of their overall jewelry obsession – that is, the greatest number of searches for jewelry items, metals, and gemstones when equalized by population.
| STATE | Overall Score out of 100 |
|---|---|
| New York | 86.93 |
| California | 80.49 |
| Texas | 76.50 |
| Georgia | 75.36 |
| Maryland | 73.10 |
| Massachusetts | 73.03 |
| New Jersey | 72.59 |
| Nevada | 67.43 |
| Florida | 65.92 |
| North Carolina | 65.00 |
| CITY | Overall Score out of 100 |
|---|---|
| Illinois | 64.16 |
| Virginia | 62.50 |
| Connecticut | 60.70 |
| Colorado | 59.34 |
| Washington | 57.19 |
| Rhode Island | 54.12 |
| Hawaii | 53.35 |
| Arizona | 51.62 |
| Delaware | 51.38 |
| Pennsylvania | 50.31 |
Methodology
To collate our findings, we began by establishing a list of keywords based on metals, gemstones, and styles of jewelry. We examined search data from Google across every US state, counting the number of times these terms were searched in each state.
We made one exception in our data for Washington D.C. Here, we excluded the capitol from the state-level search data, but felt it made sense to include it in the overall results showing the most popular jewelry item.
Additionally, we looked at how often the term ‘luxury’ had been used in these searches. This allowed us to extract this specific term and allocate it a score across the United States. Pulling this data out enabled us to see the difference between searches for terms such as ‘rings’ and ‘luxury rings’.
In all cases, we then equalized these searches per 100,000 population to account for the different populations of each state. Without this important step, the most populous states, like California, would have dominated the findings of less populous states like Wyoming.
We were able to calculate a score for each type of metal or gemstone in each state. By totaling these we can determine the most popular items within each state and across all states.
Finally, to measure the popularity of the different types of jewelry, we examined the search volumes again. Where states appeared to favor different items equally, we studied the year-on-year trends to find the most popular.
