The right-hand ring: Good idea, or just good marketing?
Filed under: Holiday Style, Accessories, Style in the News
Industrious women are buying rings for their right hand to celebrate their independence, hard work, and accomplishments. Or are they?As the holiday season approaches and we are inundated with Christmas jewelry ads, I am seeing more and more campaigns aimed at "power women" with gorgeous and dazzling diamond settings designed (supposedly) for right-hand wear only. The styles, sizes and settings are billed as fun, flirty, and a deviation from the traditional wedding/engagement bands. "Treat yourself -- you've earned it! Women work and can buy for themselves!" scream the ads in large print, placed in women-centric magazines and television programming.
While I love a diamond as much as the next gal, I have to wonder if this isn't all a clever marketing trick, designed specifically to prey on our culture's current obsession with working, powerful women and mothers. And even if it is such a ploy, is it harmless, or should we be worried? American consumerism is great, and is largely why our opportunistic country can thrive the way it does. But do we really need another Hallmark Holiday, wrapped up in shiny paper and aimed directly at some perceived flock of unwitting female consumers with money to burn?
Or, perhaps, I'm just being a Christmas Scrooge. What do you think about the right-hand ring?
