Men have always faced a troubling dilemma when it comes to jewellery, which has long been seen as the exclusive domain of the woman. Men wear very little jewellery, because society frowns upon men that decorate themselves too much. Vanity and attention to one’s self-image are not very masculine qualities, tradition tells us; men, therefore, must not wear jewellery. And when they do wear jewellery, it should be minimal, and where possible it should be functional – that is to say, it should serve a specific purpose. Look at the mainstays of male jewellery – things like watches, cufflinks and tie bars. Watches serve to tell the time; cufflinks keep your shirt cuffs closed, and tie bars fasten down your tie. These are the hallmarks of men’s jewellery.
By contrast, women get to wear diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and anything else they want to – all in the name of attracting men. How, then, does man attract women? Through watches and tie bars? But then how come the most expensive watches – Rolexes and Patek Phillippes and the like – are extremely plain and conservative? How are watches supposed to attract the opposite sex when a $20,000 Rolex doesn’t look that much different from a $200 gold-plated Seiko?
The answer lies in different directions. It is important to realize that men have never quite been forbidden from the ENTIRE world of gold jewellery – just some of it. Many men get away with wearing necklaces, but again, this is difficult for all men to wear – it usually goes well with the open shirtneck, but many men don’t necessarily feel comfortable with three buttons undone. Indeed, to feel comfortable walking around like this, you probably need to have bronzed skin, or be Italian (or both).
A more acceptable option, of course, is bracelets. Bracelets have always been a very masculine thing to wear, and have been worn by men from Napoleon to Tony Soprano. Mens gold bracelets are particularly popular with the ladies, since silver (or god forbid, stainless steel) bracelets denote a man of somewhat cheap and stingy character. A mens gold bracelet, on the other hand, implies the exact opposite.
Of course, this brings up another entirely different range of problem, particularly for men that refuse to wear gold – and understandably so, since gold does not work with all skin tones (it actually works best with the previously mentioned bronzed Italian skin, but that is neither here nor there). “What can I wear as an acceptable substitute for a gold bracelet?”, these men ask. Well, there is always platinum, but that has quite a heavy price tag attached to it. We suggest mens white gold bracelets, as white gold is certainly an acceptable substitute for yellow gold (and does not carry with it the cheap finish of stainless steel or impure silver). A mens white gold bracelet can, in a lot of cases, be found in many places at a slightly cheaper price than the higher purity yellow gold bracelets, since 18k white gold does not cost as much as, say, 22k yellow gold.
The most important thing with a men’s bracelet, however, is its weight. It has to feel heavy; if it does not, the entire charade is lost and you might as well not wear a bracelet at all. In light of this particular concern, the best kind of bracelet is the mens solid gold bracelet – but of course, the prices of these are absolutely exorbitant. Still, nobody ever said it was easy to attract a woman.