ENGAGEMENT RING STYLES

When you’re shopping for an engagement ring, you’ve got a million choices at your fingertips. While the digital age has opened up vistas of shopping that a fiancée a hundred years ago would have killed for, it’s also brought a sense of paralysis to many women. There are sometimes too many choices! However, engagement ring styles, while varied, tend to cluster around certain trends.

Here at Northeastern Fine Jewelry, we have such a passion for the art of engagement ring design that these styles are second nature to us! The following are four of the most popular style groupings in the world of design.

VINTAGE

Vintage is a word that has many different meanings in the jewelry world. The most conservative definition refers to jewelry that’s at least 100 years old, but more casual definitions open the door up to jewelry that’s about 25 years old. However, in the world of engagement ring design, two of the most popular eras for vintage looks are the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods. In these looks, the most common features are milgrain beading, organic themes like flowers and leaves, a preference for white metals, and halo designs that err on the side of geometric boldness.

CLASSIC

Classic isn’t synonymous with vintage, and the two styles have marked differences. Classic wedding bands are those made to have a timeless appeal. Not adhering to either vintage or contemporary models, these rings tend to feature universal favorites, such as 18k yellow gold, round-cut diamonds, and clear lines of diamonds along the shanks of the ring. Often, a classic-style ring will feature prongs in lieu of other types of settings, so if you have a diamond you want to show off, classic may be ideal.

MODERN

The modern engagement ring is one that should appeal to a woman with extremely bold tastes and her own ideas about how to get engaged. Modern looks may appropriate some themes from classic or vintage rings, but they tend to try new ideas out, such as shanks made entirely from differently shaped settings, the contemporary cool of channel-set and tension-set stones, and different forms of split shanks. Also, modern engagement rings tend to also feature modern diamond shapes, including the pear-cut and princess-cut diamond, as either center stones or side stones.

ALTERNATIVE

Also known as the “boho look,” the alternative engagement ring is another of the bold engagement ring styles. Many of the looks in this style tend toward the artistic or handmade for their appeal, including asymmetric gold, irregular bezel settings, and unusual cuts or shapes of diamond for the center stone (such as rose cuts or baguettes). The alternative style also tends to favor alternatives to diamond, so if you’re the kind of woman who adores colored gems, you may appreciate an engagement ring built entirely around a garnet or druzy.

FIND YOUR FAVORITE ENGAGEMENT RING STYLE AT NORTHEASTERN FINE JEWELRY

It’s important to note that here at Northeastern Fine Jewelry, our designers have a great deal of experience crafting custom designed jewelry, so if you’ve got a look that you’ve got dreams of seeing come to life, we can help you with that! If you’d like to learn more about engagement ring styles and finding the right one for you, contact us at any of our showrooms: 518-372-3604 for Schenectady, New York; 518-862-9441 for Albany, New York; or 1-518-793-0151 for Glens Falls, New York!