A BOLD STATEMENT

First seen in the speakeasies of the Roaring Twenties, the cocktail ring returns to the spotlight. Loud and proud, it's ready to stir things up all over again.

- Words: MINDY TEH

Big, bold and beautiful is back – with a vengeance.

From Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s wedding extravaganza in Venice, to Lady Gaga's theatrical Mayhem Ball Tour, and Schiaparelli’s gold-drenched Icarus collection, 2025 is the year maximalism reclaimed its spotlight in the most audacious ways possible. As if on cue, jewellery has followed suit, with the cocktail ring reemerging as the ultimate visual exclamation point to the zeitgeist.

Unapologetically bold and defiant, the cocktail ring was, in fact, borne of rebellion. Created in the Roaring Twenties, these rings were increasingly worn by women who, emboldened by the new jazz-age wave of independence and postwar prosperity, flouted Prohibition laws and frequented underground clubs and parties. Often perched on the right hand – that is, the drinking hand (itself a deliberate gesture of autonomy from matrimonial convention) - the cocktail ring was worn to draw attention to those holding these illicit drinks, and soon became a symbol of female agency and daring.

“Rings have always been connected to symbolic functions and rituals – from the simple wedding band to the signet ring of the Middle Ages. The Etruscans used gold, the Romans added gemstones,” says Melanie Grant, award-winning writer and author of The Jewelry Book published by Phaidon that explores 200 years of jewellery. “The cocktail ring went even further by expanding the centre stone into what we call ‘statement jewellery’ today.”

While the term is often used loosely, the cocktail ring is quite distinct from a statement ring in that it is often set with an oversized semiprecious or precious stone in the centre surrounded by diamonds or smaller accent gems, or crafted in a large bulbous structure. “We love cocktail rings because they are large, provocative and gloriously ornate,” Grant affirms.