Jewellery and the Alpha Male: Your Guide to 2026’s Finest Accessories
Michael B. Jordan, Jacob Elordi, Jimin of BTS, Jung Kook and a motley crew of men are striking a pose for dazzling accessories.
For decades, the unspoken rule for the well-dressed Singaporean gentleman was restraint: a good watch, cufflinks on special occasions, perhaps a signet ring passed down from a grandfather or favourite relative of pride and providence. That rule has quietly collapsed. Walk through Ngee Ann City, Marina Bay Sands or ION Orchard today and the maisons that once catered almost exclusively to women – Cartier, Graff, Van Cleef & Arpels – are dressing their windows, and their campaigns, around men. The discerning gentleman of 2026 doesn’t just wear a fine watch. He wears a brooch, a chain, a cuff of hand-carved gold, and he wears it with the same confidence his female counterparts have carried for a century. A list of our timeless favourites… for this season!
The Lucky Eight
Graff
The British high jeweller has named BTS’s Jung Kook as its new global ambassador, fronting a campaign for the Laurence Graff Signature collection shot by Norwegian photographer Sølve Sundsbø against the house’s signature green-and-gold backdrop. The line transforms the geometry of a cut diamond into sculptural gold pieces – chain links, ear cuffs, pendants and pavé rings, each carved from a single piece of gold and designed to be worn by anyone.
Cartier
After Timothée Chalamet’s tenure – and a widely discussed Oscars snub last year – the maison has turned to Jacob Elordi, who made his debut as global ambassador fronting the new Love Unlimited collection, directed and photographed by Sofia Coppola, reuniting the pair after Priscilla. Love Unlimited reworks the 1969 Love bracelet into a flexible, articulated design of nearly 200 miniature gold components, with a concealed clasp that lets pieces link into longer configurations – an update on Aldo Cipullo’s original that plays well on a man’s wrist.
David Yurman
Michael B. Jordan is the house’s man of the year. For the 2026 Oscars, where Jordan won Best Actor for his dual role in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners – the film that earned a record 16 nominations – David Yurman’s New York atelier handcrafted a suite of three brooches, each taking 40 hours to complete, in a mix of pavé and white diamonds centred on a rose-cut black diamond. Jordan wore one pinned to the back of his jacket, discovered only when photographers caught him embracing fellow nominees. Evan Yurman, the house’s president and chief creative officer, said the pieces were designed to reflect Jordan’s strength, authenticity and confidence both on and off screen. Peruse their brochure in store on online – there’s something for the discerning gent. Yurman was/is an artist first; his jewellery reflects that beautifully.
Bulgari
Under longtime creative director and gem-buyer Lucia Silvestri, the Roman house unveiled Eclettica this year – 15 transformable high-jewellery pieces and 50 “millionaire” creations drawing on painting, sculpture and Italian architecture. Silvestri describes the collection as built on “cross-pollination” across eras and cultures; its bold cuffs and chain motifs sit comfortably on men who favour Bulgari’s Serpenti and B.zero1 lines. Take note of actor Jake Gyllenhaal as the sole male ambassador in the clip – wearing the brand’s accessory as a brooch on his tuxedo lapel.
Van Cleef & Arpels
Led by chief executive Catherine Rénier, the Maison’s strict quality control of its organic-stone Alhambra pieces makes the malachite and tiger’s-eye designs increasingly scarce and coveted. The lucky-motif Alhambra necklaces and bracelets, unisex by design, have become a quiet flex among younger male collectors drawn to their heritage and rarity.
De Beers
De Beers Brands is run by chief executive Sandrine Conseiller, with De Beers London – the house’s design-led jewellery arm – headed by Emmanuelle Nodale. Diamond solitaires remain the house’s calling card, but its newer, sculptural gold pieces have found a foothold with men seeking a subtler diamond statement than a full pavé cuff. When it came to accessories, however, House Ambassador Zeng Shunxi was one to watch as he fully embraced the Lotus by De Beers collection. The Chinese actor and singer, also known as Joseph Zeng, layered signature four-petal diamond pieces from the refreshed line with effortless style. His polished presence underscored the collection’s modern take on quiet strength and enduring elegance.
Mikimoto
The originator of the cultured pearl unveiled its 2026 high-jewellery collection, L’éclat, at Paris Haute Couture Week – pieces built around the idea of light emerging from stillness. Beyond the showcase, Mikimoto’s dedicated men’s line of pearl pendants and single-strand chain bracelets continues to court a clientele rediscovering pearls as a masculine accessory, a full circle from the days when pearls signalled only femininity.
Tiffany & Co.
BTS’s Jimin remains a face of the house, having fronted campaigns for its Lock and Hardwear collections since his 2023 appointment as global ambassador – pieces built around interlocking hardware and industrial screw motifs that read as easily on a man’s wrist as a woman’s. Parent company LVMH does not release information or break down exact revenue and sales figures when it comes to per individual celebrity endorsement. However, the announcement tweet welcoming Jimin became Tiffany & Co.’s most-liked tweet in history, garnering over 317,000 likes [more by the time you read this!] and vastly outperforming previous major brand announcements.
The women behind the jewels
A striking pattern sits behind this menswear pivot: many of the world’s most influential jewellery houses are today led or designed by women. Catherine Rénier runs Van Cleef & Arpels. Sandrine Conseiller heads De Beers Brands, with Emmanuelle Nodale at De Beers London. Claire Choisne has been Boucheron‘s creative director since 2011, steering its high-jewellery direction. Lucia Silvestri has shaped Bulgari‘s aesthetic for more than four decades as its creative director and head of gem-buying. It’s a reversal of an industry once defined almost entirely by its founding patriarchs – Cartier, Boucheron, Van Cleef himself – now largely interpreted through female creative vision, even as its newest customers and faces are… men!
Boucheron’s philosophical turn
Boucheron’s Carte Blanche 2026 High Jewellery Collection, Human Being, elevates classic cluster designs into bold statement pieces that celebrate individuality through exceptional craftsmanship. Across five sets—Rain, Flower, Light, Tattoo and Checkers—each necklace and matching ring shares a unifying form yet deploys distinct techniques, from diamonds suspended in rock crystal droplets and micro-painted pink quartz to glyptic-engraved smoky quartz and laser-textured onyx. Requiring over 14,000 hours of artisanal work, these creations underscore human creativity and unique details, transforming high jewellery into powerful expressions of identity that make striking accessories for modern wardrobes. Forget delicate little bits and baubles – the maximalism is refined and exquisite for the bold and the dutiful gent.
Easing into the bling ring!
Not every gentleman is ready for a brooch on his lapel. Unisex collections from Chaumet, Chopard, Damiani, Harry Winston and Hearts on Fire offer a gentler introduction: a single ring, a slim bracelet, or a chain anchored by one serious stone. Chaumet’s Bee de Chaumet — reworked and renamed from Bee My Love under chief executive Charles Leung – is explicitly designed this way; its white-gold bracelets and honeycomb-motif rings are, in Leung’s words, bought by men and women of all ages for everyday wear.
Fashion houses have long offered a quieter route in. Hermès and Gucci have maintained men’s fine jewellery lines for years – a signet ring here, a subtle chain there – favouring understatement over spectacle, proof that a man doesn’t need a full parure to signal taste.
Power, then and now
In Asia, jewellery on men was never mere decoration – it was popular vernacular. Royal courts signalled dynasty through jade and gold; temple deities were adorned to project divinity; political and religious authority was, for centuries, worn on the body as much as declared. That symbolism curdled somewhat by the 1970s and 80s into a narrower stereotype – chunky gold read as either old-money patriarch or new-money excess, and precious little in between.
What’s happening now looks more like a return than a rupture: a freefall away from rigid gender coding and toward something closer to that older, status-driven relationship with jewellery – just without the assumption that only certain men are allowed to wear it. Few embody the shift better than Michael B. Jordan, an unimpeachably physical leading man who built his career boxing and fighting his way through franchise cinema, now regularly dazzling on red carpets in bespoke diamond brooches. Musicians got there first, of course — hip-hop’s relationship with “bling” has run for decades, not always read as good taste so much as unapologetic excess. But today’s crop of male stars, from K-pop idols to Oscar winners, are proving that a brooch, a stack of rings, or even a pearl necklace can sit at the very centre of modern masculine style – refined, not incidental.
