Embrace Contrasts with Mixed Metal Jewellery...
- lisacrockard
- Apr 28
- 3 min read
There's been a bit of interest in mixed metal jewellery in fashion recently, but it's not just a flash in the pan trend for 2025, wearing different coloured metals together is great if you love all colours of precious metals, or just can't to decide which to choose.
Wearing a mixture of jewellery can be as simple as stacking up different rings & bangles, or layering multiple necklaces each made of various metals, such as natural silver, oxidised silver, or gold in its various tones and carats. This gives you the luxury to just wear one metal when the fancy takes you and creates a different look if you decide to combine and layer them with lots of pieces together. However, you can always eliminate the dilemma of choosing between gold or silver completely, by going for pieces that combine more than one metal within each piece.
How I Create Mixed Metal Jewellery
I have a love for mixed metal jewellery, partly because I'm indecisive, partly because I adore contrasts, but also because it can be very decorative, and makes accessorising easy. Using different coloured metals in the same piece of jewellery can allow me to highlight beautiful textures, or create interest and pattern on minimal style, geometric pieces.
I use a couple of techniques when I'm creating mixed metal pieces; Keum Boo and Placement Plating. With my keum boo pieces I can be definite in the way I apply the gold, giving sharp edges and specific areas of equal depth gold. With placement plating, I can create shaded areas with blurred, soft edges and grades of gold areas in certain areas rather than across the whole piece. Both techniques, since I use 24ct gold, also allow me to add an oxidised patina to further increase the contrast; silver takes oxidising solution extremely well, turning it darker, while it doesn't affect pure gold.
Choosing the Right Pieces
Understanding how mixed metal jewellery is created, will help you decide what pieces to choose, for how you will wear them.
Keum Boo: (see more about keum boo here) uses thicker layers of gold than gold-plating or vermeil, so it is considered more durable and should last longer than pieces of jewellery that are plated with thinner layers of gold. It is mostly pure 24ct gold that is fused to pure silver, it can't be done with lesser carats of gold such as 9ct, 14ct or 18ct. Keum boo pieces work perfectly for all kinds of jewellery.
Placement Plating: allows me to create different results such as fading and grading effects, but the gold layer deposited is much thinner compared to keum boo, so is better suited to pieces of jewellery such as earrings or pendants that don't get as much daily abrasion. Plated pieces of jewellery can always be, & are often, re-plated eventually, to restore the initial finish.
If you love mixed metal jewellery, you're in the right place, if you've not yet ventured into wearing any yet, you might just find your new favourite mixed metal piece of jewellery right here!
L x
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