Aside from showcasing your impeccable taste and impressive baubles, being able to layer jewelry also communicates that you’re naturally stylish. How else would you be able to throw on loads of mismatched jewelry and look so effortless? Because we aren’t all born with intrinsic styling abilities we’ve rounded up a few key tips to assist you.
Step 1: Consider Your Outfit
Justin Coit
If you’re going to spend a few extra minutes crafting yourself into a jewelry smorgasbord you can’t then change outfits 9 times before leaving the house. Settle on your ensemble then add the extras.
2. Pick One Area To Highlight
Unless you’re Iris Apfel or Rachel Zoe, don’t start out by layering necklaces, bracelets, earrings and rings simultaneously. If you’re wearing a plunging neckline, make your neck the centerpiece. If you’re wearing a skinny knit, why not highlight your hands? If you’re going for casual-luxe, keep the party to your ears. When it comes to necklace layering, avoid competing with ruffles or complicated necklines, but you can play with silhouettes from a collared blouse to a crewneck sweater and everything in between.
3. Make Your Own Rules
By this, we mean to choose a quality that you want each piece to share, and stick to it. For example, you’re in the mood to wear gold. Great, that’s your rule! Everything should be gold but can otherwise vary in size, style, era, etc. Perhaps you’re in the mood to only wear dainty pieces, but within those boundaries, you can incorporate a variety of metals and stones. By keeping one quality constant you’ll avoid looking like your jewelry box exploded yet you’ll still maintain the haphazard, laissez-faire vibe.
4. Keep Trying…Or Cheat
There is inevitably a moment when this process will be frustrating (we see you, tangled chains). Rather than getting annoyed, think of this as a mini art project. We all know that creativity is good for the soul, so jewelry layering is basically self care. We would, however, like to warn you against trying this on Monday morning when you’ve overslept. For those of you who can’t be bothered—no judgement—simply buy pre-layered pieces. We’ve rounded up a few of our favorites below.
