From Italy with Inspiration | Sarah’s Jewellery Trends to Watch for 2027

Each year, Orsini founder Sarah Hutchings travels to Italy to meet with the jewellery houses she has worked with for many years, discover new collections and immerse herself in the craftsmanship, design and creativity that continue to make Italian jewellery so exceptional.

This September, Sarah’s travels took her from Milan and Florence to Vicenza, visiting the boutiques and showrooms of some of Orsini’s most important Italian jewellery houses, including Pomellato, Chantecler and Marco Bicego, before attending Vicenzaoro, one of the world’s most influential fine jewellery fairs.

For Sarah, these trips are about much more than simply selecting new jewellery.

“I love seeing the jewellery in its Italian environment - visiting the boutiques, talking with the teams, trying pieces on and seeing how collections are being styled. It gives me a much stronger feeling for what I want to bring back to Orsini and, importantly, what I think our clients in New Zealand will love.”

Inside the world of Italian jewellery

Visiting Italy also reinforces something Sarah has believed since founding Orsini in 2008: truly beautiful jewellery is rarely about following a trend for a single season.Walking through Milan and Florence, Sarah saw the same jewellery houses represented alongside the great international fashion maisons. Collections familiar to Orsini clients are part of a much broader international luxury world.

At Pomellato, Sarah was particularly drawn to the confidence of the brand’s designs — bold yet beautifully wearable, with rounded forms, exceptional craftsmanship and the unmistakable Milanese use of colour.

At Marco Bicego, the beauty lies in a different expression of Italian craftsmanship: hand-worked 18-carat gold, wonderful texture and jewellery designed to be layered and worn with an effortless sense of luxury.

These visits also gave Sarah the opportunity to look beyond the jewellery itself. Boutique interiors, lighting, displays, materials, colour palettes and the way jewellery is presented all provide inspiration to bring home to Orsini.

Vicenzaoro: where the jewellery world meets

From there, Sarah travelled to Vicenzaoro, the international jewellery show in Vicenza.

It is an extraordinary gathering of the global jewellery industry, bringing together more than 1,300 exhibitors and representatives from 145 countries. For a jewellery buyer, it offers an invaluable opportunity to see hundreds of collections together and identify the ideas beginning to emerge across different designers and markets.

And this year, one message was particularly clear:

Jewellery is becoming more personal, more tactile and more expressive.

Rather than one dominant look, Sarah saw several ideas developing simultaneously — beautifully worked gold, stronger silhouettes, colour, texture, layering and jewellery that moves or can be worn in different ways.

Independent reporting from Vicenzaoro observed similar themes, including flexible and transformable jewellery, coloured gemstones, distinctive gold finishes, layering and stacking, and renewed interest in substantial pieces where the craftsmanship and intrinsic value of the jewellery are immediately apparent.

For Sarah, these directions feel particularly relevant to the way Orsini clients already wear jewellery.

Sarah’s jewellery trends to watch for 2027

1. Gold becomes the hero

One of Sarah’s strongest observations from Italy was the continuing importance of gold itself as the design.

Rather than simply providing a setting for gemstones, beautifully worked 18kt gold is increasingly the focal point - sculpted, textured, satin-finished, hammered or polished to create contrast and movement.

There is also a return to stronger shapes: wider bangles, statement rings, beautiful chains and earrings with volume.

At Vicenzaoro, this renewed emphasis on yellow gold, substantial forms and expressive surfaces was evident across numerous collections.

It is a direction that feels inherently Italian - luxurious without needing to be overly formal.

2. Jewellery with movement

Jewellery for 2027 isn't static.

Sarah saw pieces that flex, sway, move and respond to the body: supple bracelets, articulated links, fluid and reflective necklaces and designs that feel almost sculptural when worn.

This idea of dynamism has been developing within international jewellery forecasting for several seasons, with movement increasingly becoming part of the design language rather than simply a technical feature.

Curved cuffs, expandable links and kinetic forms all allow jewellery to change subtly as the wearer moves. 

For Sarah, it is also what makes jewellery sensual and enjoyable to wear.

3. Colour is here to stay

After years in which diamonds and restrained palettes dominated much of contemporary fine jewellery, colour continues to have an enormous presence.

Sapphires, tourmalines and other exceptional coloured gemstones appeared throughout Vicenza, alongside playful combinations of different tones. At the higher end of the market, there was also considerable emphasis on the quality, rarity and provenance of individual natural gemstones.

This is something Orsini has long embraced through Italian houses such as Pomellato, as well as through Sarah’s own curated bespoke collections.

Sarah sees colour becoming less about matching and more about personality - combining unexpected shades, layering different gemstones and choosing a colour simply because of the emotion it evokes.

Marco Bicego has a stunning array of colours in its new season collections, including topaz, turquoise, peridot and amethyst.

Nanis also has an interesting Boule collection featuring unusual gemstones such as jadeite, strawberry quartz, lepidolite and amazonite. A playful collection featuring colour is the reversable collection, featured below.

6. Jewellery becomes more personal

Perhaps the most important direction Sarah observed wasn't a particular gemstone, shape or colour. It was individuality.

International jewellery is moving away from the idea that everyone should own or wear the same recognisable piece. Instead, designers are creating jewellery that can be interpreted differently by each wearer.

Vogue Italia's review of Vicenzaoro September 2026 similarly highlighted a renewed confidence in distinctive brand identities and jewellery that invites personal interpretation rather than trying to appeal universally.

There is definitely a move away from mainstream, well-known and instantly recognisable brands towards more bespoke and “quieter” luxury fine jewellery.

This is very much how Sarah has always approached buying for Orsini.

“I don't want Orsini to have everything. I want us to have exceptional pieces that I genuinely love and that I believe will be exciting for our clients to discover. Jewellery should feel personal.”

Looking beyond 2027

Vicenzaoro is also about looking further ahead.

Trendvision Jewellery + Forecasting, led by Paola De Luca, uses changes in culture, consumer behaviour, technology, fashion and society to anticipate how our relationship with jewellery will evolve.

At Vicenzaoro September 2026, De Luca and the Trendvision team unveiled The Jewellery Trendbook 2028+, exploring the next evolution of luxury through four broad directions: Adaptive System, Living Culture, Mimesis and Wunderkammer.

While those forecasts look further into the future, Sarah believes many of the changes are already visible.

Jewellery is becoming more adaptable and individual. Craftsmanship is increasingly valued. Colour and emotion matter. Pieces need to feel wonderful on the body. And in a world of increasingly disposable products, beautifully made fine jewellery offers something very different: something tangible, lasting and deeply personal.

Bringing Italy back to Orsini

Ultimately, Sarah's annual journey to Italy is about bringing a little of this extraordinary jewellery culture back to New Zealand.

It means sitting with suppliers, seeing new collections before they arrive in stores, trying on countless pieces, discussing craftsmanship with the people who make them - and sometimes discovering one unexpected jewel that simply feels perfect for Orsini.

“After almost 18 years of travelling to Italy and buying jewellery, I still get excited when I discover something beautiful. There is always another extraordinary gemstone, another clever piece of craftsmanship or another collection that makes you stop and look twice.”

Over the coming months, many of Sarah's discoveries from Italy will begin arriving at Orsini.

And if her observations from Milan, Florence and Vicenza are anything to go by, 2027 will be a year of beautiful gold, extraordinary colour, movement, individuality and jewellery designed above all to be worn and loved.