Local jewelers predict 2023 styles: Custom, colorful, timeless
The new year brings renewal, change and innovation, and that rings true for engagement rings.
“So many more people want custom-made; they don’t want cookie-cutter jewelry,” said Stephen Goslaw, owner of Robert Stephens Custom Jewelers, 141 N. Main St., Butler. “We see that people want that personalization or customization to set it apart from others.”
Goslaw has been a jeweler since he was 18 years old, spending his early career at his uncle’s shop at Milo Williams Jewelers in 1988 before opening his own store in 1997. Goslaw’s business was voted Butler’s Best Jewelry Store and Best Custom Jewelry in the Butler Eagle Readers’ Choice Awards in 2022.
“I have my hands on 95% of the projects that leave here, whether it’s something simple like just some little adjustment or a complete overhaul or a bottom-up customization,” said Zach Emigh, co-owner and goldsmith at Emigh Jewelry Company, 540 Butler Crossing, Butler.
Emigh has been a part of the family business since 2015 after serving in the Marine Corps for four years. His father, Robert Emigh, has been working as a Butler area jeweler for the past 40 years and opened his shop in 1981.
Emigh and Goslaw have noticed the same engagement ring trends at their stores in the past few years and predict them to continue strong in 2023, starting with center stones.
While both of their stores sell more natural diamonds as center stones, there has been a wave of couples choosing lab-grown diamonds or colorful stones such as morganite, sapphire, ruby and aquamarine.
“(Lab grown diamonds) are a lot less money; some people go that route just because of the financial (side) of it,” Goslaw said. “That’s probably the biggest diamond alternative right now in current times that seems to have the most popularity.”
Goslaw estimates that while about 90% of engagement ring sales at his store are natural, mine-dug diamonds, about 10% are lab-grown diamonds and other colored stones.
While this trend is still somewhat of a small wave, Emigh expects this trend to pick up speed when more customers know about it.
“I recommend (the lab-grown diamond) more so than other alternatives such as moissanite or cubic zirconia because of the durability, and nothing sparkles like a diamond,” Emigh said. “I’d say as more and more people hear about lab-grown diamonds, and the word gets out there, I think that it will increase (in popularity).”
When it comes to styles, Goslaw’s and Emigh’s customers have the same tastes, choosing solitaires and hidden halos this past year.
“I’d say the most classic is the solitaire look,” Emigh said. “That’s just always going to be a classic style just because it’s so simple and timeless, and it goes great with any kind of wedding band.”
To add more sparkle to the simplicity of the solitaire, both jewelers recommend the hidden halo.
“(The hidden halos) have been very popular these couple (of) years,” Goslaw said. “There’s a little halo of diamonds underneath the center diamond where you don’t even see them looking down, you can only see it from the side. It’s a subtle accent without overpowering the mounting or the stone.”
Both jewelers find that couples looking to exchange and upgrade their engagement rings is commonplace, whether it is due to damage or desire for a larger stone or a different shape or style.
“That happens all the time,” Emigh said. “I’ll have multiple people in that situation every week usually. A lot of times it’s for an anniversary, or they might have lost their center stone on the ring they’ve been wearing for 25 years.”
While the sparkling new diamonds dominate case space, there still is room for vintage and estate jewelry.
“We have two entire cases dedicated just to estate jewelry,” Goslaw said. “People seem to love that; we sell a lot of those engagement rings, too. Some of them are very very old, going back to the early 1900s on up.”
The styles that couples want aren’t the only engagement aspect that’s changed. According to both Goslaw and Emigh, the engagement season doesn’t really exist for them anymore.
“There doesn’t seem to be that traditional engagement season; people aren’t really following those traditional patterns,” Goslaw said.
“It’s truly all the time,” Emigh said. “I would say we don’t have an engagement ring season; it’s honestly every day of the year. At all times, I am working on multiple engagement rings.”
Goslaw and Emigh work on engagement rings throughout the year and agree that the amount of custom jewelry rises during the holidays. Goslaw said he had a stack of custom jewelry that had to be finished by Dec. 24.
This year, Goslaw and Emigh expect the engagement ring trends of 2022 to flow into 2023 with colorful or inexpensive center stones, classic styles with a little more shine, and custom designed rings to be ordered throughout the year.
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