Missoma jewelry at missoma.com
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Here's the thing: I could probably open your jewelry box right now and guess your color season. No psychic abilities required—jewelry just has seasons too.
Think about it. The woman who keeps reaching for chunky amber beads and those hammered bronze cuffs? She's not the same person drawn to delicate silver chains with icy crystal drops. One craves weight, warmth, earth. The other wants shimmer, stillness, cool precision. Neither is wrong. One of them, though—that might be you.
Jewelry is rarely random. Repetition is psychology: what we choose again and again is what resonates most deeply. Lelet NY chain necklace and bracelet at leletny.com
So I do color analysis. Spend most of my days helping clients land on their best clothing colors, which is great, but jewelry? That's honestly where this whole system gets fun. Because it's not just about metal tone—though yes, that matters—it's about energy. Movement. What story does a piece tell when light hits it? Or when it doesn't?
So. Here's a framework for thinking through all of this.
The Four Families
Before color seasons become technical, they're emotional. You often feel whether a piece belongs to Spring, Summer, Autumn, or Winter long before you can name it. Instagram/@julievos
Four main families here: Spring, Summer, Autumn, or Winter. We'll get into them eventually, but first I want to talk about the vibe of each family. Once you understand the feeling of your group, choosing jewelry becomes intuitive.
One thing before we go further: this is my personal framework. I've built it over years of client work, watching what makes someone light up versus what just... sits there. No official rulebook exists for seasonal jewelry. No one's discovered some ancient scroll declaring that Summers must wear pearls—though I will say, I've never met a Summer who doesn't look good in them. Ask another analyst and you might get a different take. That's fine by me. I'm offering one lens here. Use it if it's useful.
Spring: The Candy Store
Spring jewelry doesn't whisper—it smiles. All glow, all color, and unapologetically happy about it.
Spring jewelry should make you want to eat it.
If Spring jewelry had a mascot, it would be this: glossy fruit in gold, polished until you briefly consider taking a bite. Definitely not an heirloom—very much a treat.
I mean that literally. Think jelly beans. Rock candy. Those tiny pastel conversation hearts. Spring energy is sweet, optimistic, a little bit innocent—and Spring jewelry reflects that. This is gold and rose gold territory, but never heavy or serious. The metals are warm but light, like lemon-ginger jam in sunshine.
If you've ever wanted to wear a handful of mixed gummies and call it styling, this is your moment. Sweet colors, light gold, zero rules.
So what gives jewelry that Spring feeling? Movement, mostly. Pieces that dance when you turn your head. Dangling earrings that catch light. Pendants swinging. Charm bracelets making that tiny musical jingle when you gesture—you know the sound. Starburst shapes. Firework earrings exploding outward. Anything suggesting celebration, effervescence, joy.
Spring jewelry doesn't just sit there—it celebrates. These earrings look like they're mid-party, caught halfway through a happy little explosion.
The stones look edible. Not in a wine-and-cheese sophisticated way, either—more kid-loose-in-a-candy-shop energy. Peachy-pinks with that translucent quality, coral, warm yellow, soft orange. Lots of them have this slightly cloudy, jelly-like thing going on… Like gummy candies. Or—okay, this is specific—but like the inside of a grapefruit held up to sunlight.
When Spring shows up, it brings fruit, flowers, and a little sparkle. Everything moves, everything glows, and nothing is meant to sit quietly.
And the motifs? Hearts, butterflies, flowers, fruits. A lemon-slice pendant. A cluster of citrus charms on a chain. Spring doesn't take itself too seriously, and neither should Spring jewelry.
Summer: Mermaid Treasure
Summer jewelry doesn't sparkle—it shimmers. The kind of glow you only notice when you tilt your head.
Summer jewelry looks like something a mermaid found on the ocean floor, played with for an afternoon, then left behind in a tide pool.
This has perfect Summer energy—soft, watery, quietly luminous—I just wish it were silver.
I know that sounds whimsical. I mean it precisely, though. Summer's element is water—cool, soft, diffused water specifically. Not crashing waves or tropical surf. More like the quiet depth of the North Sea. Pale blue-green light filtering through twenty feet of water. The inside of an oyster shell.
This is Summer jewelry at its most literal: ocean colors, silver edges, and a glow that feels gently worn smooth. Nothing sharp, nothing loud—just tide-pool magic.
Silver, always. Pearl and mother-of-pearl—obviously. Abalone with that oil-slick iridescence. Moonstone that seems to glow from somewhere inside. Opal shifting through its dreamy colors. Sea glass worn soft after decades of tumbling. Shells and coral—the pale pink kind, not bright orange. Basically anything that looks like it washed up on shore rather than being mined and cut.
The ideal Summer piece would be silver, yes—but finding perfect metal, perfect stone, and perfect shape in one design isn't always realistic. Sometimes you keep the piece because it feels right.
The shapes are organic and flowing. Think seaweed moving underwater, or the way fishing nets tangle. Intertwined silver threads. Chains that drape like they're floating.
Nothing sharp, nothing loud—just a necklace that seems to float rather than sit.
Nothing sharp, nothing angular. Even Summer's crystals have a soft, almost cloudy quality to them—they catch light gently, like sun through sea mist, instead of throwing it back the way Winter's do with all that sharp brilliance.
Autumn: Earth Treasures
This is Autumn jewelry in one glance: thick gold, sculptural weight, and a tree-bark texture that's nothing remotely delicate.
Autumn jewelry has weight. You feel it when you put it on—not oppressively heavy, but substantial. Present. Grounded. Like it came from somewhere and actually means something.
The rope-like links give it the feeling of something built to hold, not just to shine.
Earth element, obviously. Stones you'd literally find underfoot: jasper, agate, tiger's eye, amber, unakite, petrified wood. Visible veins running through them. Striations that basically tell the story of how they formed—over millennia, right there in the pattern. Nothing uniform. Nothing that looks manufactured. Organic in the most literal sense. These pieces look like they grew.
This looks like it was carved rather than designed—stone first, jewelry second.
Warm metals. Gold, copper with that reddish quality, bronze with its ancient patina. And the construction has heft to it. Braided chains that look like rope. Thick cuffs with hammered surfaces. Woven leather. Toggle clasps you can actually feel when you fasten them. Nothing delicate here. Built to last, like good boots. Like a bag you'll still be carrying in fifteen years.
Crafted from tagua seeds and hung on leather, this feels less like an accessory and more like something you picked up on a walk and decided to keep. Earthy, tactile, and unapologetically grounded.
Autumn jewelry doesn't dance. Won't float. It anchors. Firm handshake energy. A meal that sticks to your ribs. A story someone tells you by a fire.
Autumn jewelry doesn't hide its materials. You can see the texture, the variation, the sense that this existed long before it was meant to be worn.
Wear it and you look like someone who knows where they come from.
Winter: The Royal Vault
This is the Royal Vault side of Winter in full view: emeralds cut with intention, diamonds framing every edge, and a stillness that reads as power rather than restraint. This isn't jewelry, it's regalia.
Winter jewelry, the way I see it, has two origin stories. And I think both are right.
This piece feels designed around control—clean lines, a strict checkerboard rhythm, and high-shine stones locked firmly in place. Winter jewelry doesn't move; it holds.
First: the jewelry vault of a European royal family. Pieces in the collection for centuries. Locked behind glass, brought out only for state occasions. Emeralds the size of your thumbnail, set in platinum. Diamond chokers that need their own security detail. The kind of jewelry that makes a room go quiet when you walk in.
This is Winter's idea of balance: diamonds, sapphire, diamonds—structured, deliberate, and unmistakably royal.
Second: ice. A glacier. An icicle edge catching light just so. Arctic landscape where nothing moves—everything crystallized, suspended, held still by cold.
This is Winter jewelry at full volume: hard edges, icy clarity, and zero interest in softness.
Both of these are Winter. High shine. Silver, platinum, white gold. Diamonds that are clear and hard and brilliant. Colored stones, when Winter uses them, come saturated and clear: deep emerald, sapphire blue, ruby red. No cloudiness. No softness. No organic variation. These stones have been cut with mathematical precision into geometric shapes: emerald cuts, baguettes, sharp princess squares, pears.
Winter pieces are built around power, not movement.
And the key quality? Stillness. Winter jewelry doesn't move. No dangling, no swinging, no chiming. These pieces often sit against skin like armor—which, in a way, they are. Polished, hard, smooth surfaces. Sharp angles that could cut. Winter jewelry isn't friendly. Not interested in making you comfortable. It's announcing something: the person wearing this is not someone you trifle with.
When Seasons Have Babies: The Borders
At first glance, this reads as pure Spring—light, playful, effortless. But look closer and you'll spot Winter's icy clarity in the crystals, candy-bright Spring gems, and Autumn's grounding details in the lock and toggle. Different families, quietly agreeing to coexist. Instagram/@kendrascott
Here's where it gets interesting.
The twelve-season color system recognizes that not everyone fits neatly into one family. Some people sit at the border between two seasons, combining characteristics of both. In color terms, these are the "neutral" seasons: Soft, Light, Bright, and Dark.
Think of it like this: two true seasons had a couple of kids. Both children inherited traits from both parents—which is why these seasons get confused with each other all the time. Same logic works for jewelry.
Spring + Summer: Light Spring and Light Summer
This is what happens when candy colors take a dip in the ocean.
Picture a mermaid surfacing near a boardwalk, wandering into a saltwater taffy shop, completely losing her mind.
Candy colors, cooled down and softened with silver.
That's Light Spring and Light Summer right there. Spring's candy-store energy collides with Summer's oceanic cool, and you end up with confection that's been kissed by sea breeze. Those saturated M&M brights of true Spring go softer—Easter-egg pastels now. Robin's egg blue. Buttercream yellow. Petal pink. Still sweet, still playful. Just... gentler. Italian gelato in a seaside town rather than hard candy from a jar.
It's joyful without being bright, sweet without being sugary—soft, pastel, and very gelato-coded.
Iridescence lives here. That shifting, oil-on-water shimmer that can't commit to pink or peach or gold? That's the territory. Dichroic glass pendants changing color when you move. Baroque pearls with that subtle rainbow overtone. Anything catching light and scattering it into soft, dreamy fragments.
This is why Light Spring and Light Summer are hard to pin down: peachy one second, pearly and golden the next, with a finish that keeps changing its mind.
The shapes borrow from both parents—Spring's floral motifs rendered in Summer's softer, cooler palette. Pearls strung on gold chains. Soft mint and blush together. Chunky rose quartz beads that look like they could be candy—but polished smooth by the tide.
Dichroic glass is basically color in motion, and that's exactly why it works here. It shifts, glows, and never lands in just one mood.
Beach vacation jewelry. Ice cream for breakfast. Nobody judging.
Summer + Autumn: Soft Summer and Soft Autumn
Half pearl, half chain—and that's the point. Summer softness meeting Autumn structure, neither trying to overpower the other.
Right where ocean meets land—that's Soft Summer and Soft Autumn territory. The in-between space. Sea treasures washing up, getting tangled in rope. Pearls caught in fishing nets. Shells sitting in sand long enough to absorb warmth from the earth underneath.
These earrings feel like a pearl pulled up in a fisherman's net—salt-soft, luminous, and suddenly held in something stronger than itself. Summer's gentleness, Autumn's grip.
Summer's sea treasures—pearls, shells, mother-of-pearl—caged in Autumn's gold. Strung on woven chains that look like rope or hemp. Set Summer's moonstones and soft blue chalcedony in Autumn's warm, buttery settings. Picture the cool grey of a pearl dangling from an earthy cluster of cabochons. A fish motif carved from speckled dalmatian jasper. Wood and gold and cloudy stones, all in one earring.
A fish motif, but make it earthy. Speckled stone instead of sparkle, warm gold instead of shine—sea life filtered through land.
Mediterranean feeling rather than Northern. Sun-warmed instead of mist-cool. Aged instead of freshly found. Mother-of-pearl in brown-pink sunset tones—not icy silver, unless you warm it up with gold. Baroque pearls that aren't trying for perfection. Stones with visible inclusions, like something got trapped inside millions of years ago. Because it did.
Think Autumn's woven textures, loosened and lightened—less rope, more open weave. Agate set securely, with diamonds that dangle just enough to keep it from feeling dense.
This is jewelry with a story. It looks inherited, discovered, collected over time.
Shell with its natural patterning, warm brass, and just a touch of crystal sparkle. Sea-born softness, anchored and aged.
Summer's softness meets Autumn's substance—and every piece has been somewhere and seen something before it found its way to you.
Autumn + Winter: Dark Autumn and Dark Winter
For me, Dark Autumn and Dark Winter jewelry feels ceremonial—like it belongs to a ritual, a lineage, or a vault. Heavy, valuable, and quietly protective.
This jewelry has survived empires.
You don't imagine these in a store. You imagine them in a vault, a temple, or on someone important in the Roman Empire—gold worn smooth by time, still unmistakably powerful.
Dark Autumn and Dark Winter don't just wear heirlooms from grandmother's jewelry box—they wear pieces that look like they were excavated from Byzantine tombs. Roman coins set in gold. Medallions with faces worn smooth by centuries. Jewelry that belongs in a museum but somehow ended up around your neck, still carrying the weight of everyone who wore it before.
Autumn's brass anchors the piece, while Winter's glass cuts through it—cool, lucid, and uncompromising.
When Autumn's earthiness meets Winter's preciousness, you get durability married to value. Pieces built to protect something—or someone. Jewelry becoming armor: thick cuffs that could deflect a blade. Cabochon stones set deep into metalwork like gems embedded in a shield.
Like a warrior standing still before the first strike, this choker holds its strength in reserve. Cool Winter metal, anchored by Autumn's weight, ready without needing to move.
The colors are rich but shadowed. Autumn's warm gold, but darkened—firelight rather than sunshine. Winter's emeralds, rubies, and sapphires, but set in ancient, buttery gold instead of cool platinum. Smoky quartz that looks like Winter's diamonds got fogged by centuries of incense.
This bracelet looks inherited rather than bought. Ornate without being fragile, dramatic without being too loud. It carries the weight of craftsmanship and time, not threat—luxury that assumes permanence.
And always—always—that sense of protection. An amulet quality. Whether it's a coin worn as a talisman for two thousand years or a cuff ornate enough to ward off evil spirits, Dark Autumn and Dark Winter jewelry doesn't just decorate. It guards. Wear it and you feel like something ancient has got your back.
Winter + Spring: Bright Winter and Bright Spring
Candy, but make it coronated. This choker feels like Spring's color palette went through Winter's treasury—bright, saturated stones arranged with the confidence of something precious, not playful.
What happens when you dip Spring's candy store in Winter's royal vault?
Spring brings the pinks and oranges; Winter insists they be faceted, framed, and impossible to ignore. This isn't sweetness—it's saturation with status.
Bright Winter and Bright Spring take Spring's sweetness—the florals, the playfulness, all that color—and render it in Winter's precious materials. These aren't jelly-bean stones anymore. They're faceted gems in saturated pink, orange, fuchsia, violet. Flower petals cast in ruby-encrusted metal. Orchids dripping with amethyst. A choker of bright crystals that looks like a candy necklace finally got promoted to the Crown Jewels. The motifs say Spring; the execution says Winter.
Candy-bright florals—Spring sweetness, frozen into something precious.
The colors walk a tightrope between both parents. Spring's warm pinks and corals, but cranked up to Winter's saturation—fuchsia instead of blush, true red instead of peachy-coral. Clear crystals mixed with warm gold. The effect is celebratory and high-impact: this jewelry doesn't whisper. It announces. Spring brings the party; Winter brings the prestige.
A blossom, but electrified. This is Bright Spring and Bright Winter at full voltage.
And my favorite Bright season effect: sometimes you can see the fusion happening literally—Winter's ice beginning to thaw under Spring's warmth. Clear crystals in organic, melting shapes—an icicle caught mid-drip, frozen water remembering what it felt like to flow.
Winter ice mid-thaw, a moment before it slips away. Still crystal-clear, still sharp with light—but softened, glossy, and dripping into something playful.
Hardness still there, but edges softened. Spring hasn't won yet. She's working on it, though.
What If You Already Own (or Love) the Wrong Jewelry?
Loving the "wrong" jewelry doesn't mean you've failed your season—it means you're human. Style gets interesting exactly where instinct and theory start negotiating. Instagram/@analuisany
Here's what I want you to know: there are no jewelry police.
Your Autumn grandmother's amber beads but you're a cool Summer? You don't have to exile them to the back of some drawer. Layer them with silver chains. Let that warm honey glow negotiate with your cool metals. You're a warm Spring who absolutely cannot quit your Winter diamond studs? Wear them with your gold hoops. The contrast becomes a feature. Not a flaw.
This is how instincts show up in real life: layers collected over time, not chosen all at once. Different energies, one story—because taste evolves, but resonance stays. BaubleBar jewelry at baublebar.com
Easiest way to bridge seasons? Mix your metals. Warm gold with cool silver. Rose gold with platinum. Play with finishes too—something high-shine next to something matte, and suddenly both pieces look like a deliberate choice. Soft pearls alongside faceted gemstones. Ocean treasures layered with earth treasures. Once you get why certain pieces belong to certain seasons, breaking the rules becomes possible. Strategic, even. Tension that reads as intentional, not accidental.
And honestly? If you love something that doesn't technically flatter you—wear it anyway. Jewelry is personal. Some pieces come through family. Through memory. Through that moment in a shop when something just spoke to you. Those pieces matter. The point isn't building some perfectly season-coordinated collection. It's understanding your instincts. Sharpening your eye. Giving yourself permission to experiment.
Jewelry has vibes. Now you know yours.
