How to Buy Jewellery for a Woman Without Knowing What She Likes

Most people who come to me for a gift open with an apology.

They say they know nothing about jewellery. They say they don't want to get it wrong. They have usually been looking for a while or just I'm their first or last port of call.

I want to say something that I have found to be true almost every time: you know far more than you think you do. Not about metals or settings, but about her. And that is the part that actually decides whether she wears it.

What follows is the conversation I would have with you if you came into the gallery. Five things to notice. None of them require you to know anything technical.

1. Look at what she already wears

Not what she owns. What she puts on without thinking.

Almost everyone has one or two pieces they wear nearly every day, and those pieces are the most reliable information you will ever get. They have survived years of choosing. Whatever they have in common is what she actually likes, regardless of anything she may have admired in a shop window.

If you can, take a photograph of them. Not to copy, but to understand. When someone shows me the necklace their wife has worn since her thirtieth, I can usually tell within a minute what she will reach for and what will stay in the box.

2. Silver or gold, and trust your eyes

This is the single most useful thing to get right, and it takes ten seconds to check.

Look at her hands and her ears. Whatever metal is there, that is her metal. People are far more consistent about this than about anything else, and it very rarely changes.

If she wears both, you have more freedom than most, and gold plated silver is worth considering, because it sits happily alongside either.

Don't overthink the carat. She may not be thinking about it, and neither should you.

3. Notice whether she wears things close, or long

Necklace length is where most gifts quietly go wrong.

Some people wear a pendant high, close to the throat. Others wear everything long, sitting lower, layered over a jumper. This is a strong personal habit and it does not tend to shift.

Look at a photograph of her, any photograph. You will see it immediately.

If you truly cannot tell, choose an adjustable chain. It removes the risk entirely, and there is no downside.

4. Plain, or with something to look at

This is the closest you need to get to a question of taste.

Some people want a clean line and nothing else. Others are drawn to surfaces with texture and movement: marks, patterns, something that catches the light differently as it turns.

Look again at what she already wears. Is it smooth and quiet, or does it have something happening on it?

If she is drawn to the plain and the linear, look at Linear or Carved. If she likes texture and mark making, Brushstroke and Decorative Concepts come from drawing, pencil and pen on paper, translated into silver.

5. Is this for every day, or for the moment?

An everyday piece needs to survive being lived in. Coats, seatbelts, small children, washing up.

An occasion piece can be more, because it will be chosen deliberately.

Both are good gifts. But they are different gifts, and knowing which one you are buying stops you from choosing something beautiful that she never quite has the right day for.

What I would gently steer you away from

Rings, unless you are certain of the size. They are the hardest thing to get right and the most disappointing to get wrong. If your heart is set on a ring for a proposal, that is a different conversation and worth having properly.

Buying to a theme rather than to her. If she has no interest in birds for example, a bird will not become meaningful because it was a gift.

Something that needs an explanation to be liked. If the story is the only reason it works, it will live in the box.

The safest good choices

If you have read all of this and still feel uncertain, there are three things that are very difficult to get wrong.

Earrings. No sizing, no length judgement. If you know her metal, you are most of the way there.

A pendant on an adjustable chain. Removes the only real variable.

A bangle or bracelet. More forgiving than a ring, and easy to wear daily.

Any of those, chosen in the metal she actually wears, in a form that matches what she already reaches for, will land.

Where the meaning comes in

None of the above is about the story. But the story is often what makes a gift stop being a nice object and start being something she keeps.

Several of my collections carry Welsh words, and they mean something specific rather than decorative. Gyda'n Gilydd means together, etched in my own handwriting. In my Dathlu Collection I use the word Cariad which is the Welsh word for love: a beautiful word that transcends everything.

If there is a word that fits the two of you, choose that. It will be the thing she mentions when someone notices it, and the reason she keeps it long after the occasion.

Practical things

Everything in the collections are made in my workshop and gallery in Llandeilo, and can be sent to you or, if you are local, collected here, which some people prefer, because it means the gift never arrives in front of the person it is for.

One thing worth knowing if this is a surprise. Nothing we send out carries the word jewellery on the outside, and the sender name is kept short and plain. A parcel that announces itself rather defeats the point, and it is the sort of thing people only think of afterwards.

If you are ordering for a date, order sooner than feels necessary. That is true of everyone, and it is the only advice in this piece that is really about logistics.

And if you have read all of this and you would still rather just describe her to someone and be told what would suit, you are welcome to do that. It is the conversation I most enjoy having.

Browse the collections

Mari Thomas designs and makes from her workshop and gallery in Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire.