The joys of yellow gold

Gold may look yellow on a first glance, but there is a difference between pure gold and yellow gold – the latter of which is alloyed with silver to give it the yellowy colour and to make it stronger. Because gold, as it is, is soft and wouldn’t perform well when worn as jewellery. Just as rose gold is created with the addition of copper, yellow gold utilises the same process – just with a different metal. White gold, for example, is typically a combination of gold and platinum.

Benefits of yellow gold are that it naturally tends to look like gold – whereas with rose gold, it distinctly doesn’t, which is the point. Yet it also has an antique-vintage feel, so pieces can have a resemblance to heirlooms. There is also the thinking that with yellow gold, such is the warmth from the shade of the metal that it enhances the diamond, which means you can save some pounds with a lower grade diamond should you so want.

It has been used as a traditional colour for engagement and wedding rings but experienced a blip during the 1990s when white gold became the in thing. But as gold is always popular and has always been a marker of success and prestige, yellow gold as the next best thing will always also therefore be popular.

Among the well-known instances of yellow gold as an engagement ring and wedding band include for the nuptials of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle: a Welsh gold wedding band was a present to Markle from the Queen, while Prince Harry bought her a three-stone engagement ring which, according to press, he said there was no doubt about what colour [metal] it would be. Vox reported him telling the BBC: “The ring is obviously yellow gold because that’s [Meghan’s] favorite, and the main stone itself is sourced from Botswana and the little diamonds either side are from my mother’s jewelry collection to make sure that she’s with us on this crazy journey together.”
(Prince Harry said of the engagement ring during a BBC interview.) Kirsten Dunst, Miley Cyrus and Mary-Kate Olsen also have all had yellow gold engagement rings.

Another recognisable example of yellow gold is Harry Winston’s lozenge; the HW Logo Yellow Gold Diamond ring has 33 round brilliant diamonds and comes inscribed with “HW” on 18k yellow gold.

The yellow gold ring pictured here is by Van Cleef & Arpels: its Temple fossilised coral ring in yellow gold with spessartite garnets, fossilised coral, diamonds.