Silver Or Gold? The Psychology Behind Your Jewelry Of Choice May Surprise You

I ripped open the box, my heart fluttering with the excitement that a package delivery always brings. But when I looked inside, my heart fell: I had ordered a necklace in gold, but the one staring back at me was silver. 

“I can do this!” I thought to myself. “I can be a silver girl!” I put the necklace on and styled it with a few other silver pieces that normally sit unworn in my jewelry box, and off I went to work. But all day I felt uncomfortable. I felt off. I felt like I was outside of myself. Somehow, the silver version of me didn’t feel much like me at all. 

As it turns out, there might be a psychological reason for this. 

“We have these scripts that tell us who we are, or who we think we are—‘I am an x person; I am a person who x’—and we develop these over time as we develop our identities and our sense of selves,” says Dr. Dion Terrelonge, a London-based psychologist who specializes in fashion. “Once you begin to wear something and it becomes part of your daily routine, it then becomes part of that script that you have for yourself.” 

Terrelonge, who always wears gold, says that it’s normal for people (hello!) to feel weird when those identity beliefs—no matter how seemingly trivial— are challenged. 

“Whenever we do something that contradicts that script that we hold in our mind for ourselves, it feels quite jarring and uncomfortable,” she explains. “One of the most jarring things that we can experience as human beings is having our sense of self and our beliefs about ourselves disproved or questioned or contradicted in any way, big or small. It might make you feel a little bit off kilter and a bit like, ‘I’m not sure if I feel comfortable in myself today, because I’m not represented in the way that I would normally represent myself.’” 

But how do we begin to write these jewelry scripts in the first place? Why was I so convinced that I belonged in gold and not silver? According to Alicia Fusayama-Hudon, a wardrobe stylist based in Montreal who generally wears silver, part of what we’re drawn to might come down to our skin tones. 

“I find that people that have more bluish, purplish undertones—the metal that will suit them the most is silver,” she says. “And people that have more golden, yellowish undertones will have gold be the best metal for them.” 

Even more powerful than that, though, is our perception of what each precious metal represents. 

“Silver is colder, it has a bit more of that edgy vibe; it’s mysterious. It makes me think of the night because the colour of the moon at night looks a bit silver,” Fusayama-Hudon offers. “Whereas gold has always been associated with warmth. You think of the sun, something rich and abundant, a bit louder sometimes; it’s very classy. So I think people identify with either one of the energies, and I think that’s why it feels so personal.” 

Vancouver-based fashion influencer Lydia Okello shares a similar sentiment. 

“Maybe because of the time I grew up in as an adolescent and young adult, silver always leaned more edgy and alternative, and gold felt very femme and classic, and softer, in a way,” they reflect. “And I think that those associations still stick in my mind, even though I don’t think they have the same cultural perception at this point.” 

Okello attributes our emotional connection to jewelry as being rooted in personal expression—even more so than the clothing we wear or even the way we style our hair. 

“The thing that I love about jewelry is it’s largely for adornment,” they say. “A lot of things that we wear are for necessity. You need clothes because you’re not allowed to be naked in public, and to protect yourself from the elements. You wear shoes because you want to protect your feet. But jewelry is such a personal expression.” 

Okello, who only wears silver, doesn’t see that changing anytime soon (and on that point, I can certainly relate). 

“It’s so weird, because, technically, gold looks better against my skin, because my skin is a warm skin tone,” they say. “So sometimes I’ll hold up gold if I find something that I really like. And then I’m like, ‘No, I just wish it was silver.’ It just doesn’t feel like me.” —Sara Harowitz