BBC2025 was the year antique jewellery sparkled – a trend highlighted by the vintage diamond engagement ring flaunted by Taylor Swift this summer. And it’s a style choice family jewellers in Leeds say they are benefiting from.
“Taylor Swift had an old mine-cut diamond that she reconverted into her modern ring,” says Jessica Spencer who works at Aladdin’s Cave in Leeds.
“That is setting a precedent, especially among young people. When I first started working here, antique jewellery wasn’t a big thing.
“I’ve noticed such a shift.”
@TaylorSwift/InstagramAladdin’s Cave is a family business that has been operating from a shop in Queens Arcade in Leeds city centre for 45 years.
“It was my grandma and my auntie Debbie who opened it,” says Ms Spencer.
“Then my mum and dad took over in the late 90s, then my dad died in 2002 and then I came to work here and never left.”
Aladdin’s Cave is just one of Yorkshire’s family jewellers selling British antiques across the globe.
Despite operating in Leeds for decades, many are now finding their markets have moved to China, America, Australia and the Middle East.
“The majority of the business I do is to America on [online marketplace] Etsy,” says Ms Spencer.
“They love it, they completely lap it up. Some of our competitors just deal solely with people in the States.”
She says the competition for antiques online has increased in the past few months.
“You only have to look online to see so many people doing it because there’s a demand for it.
“People more and more are becoming savvy to sustainable jewellery, ethical jewellery.
“The antique diamonds, they fit into that middle ground when people don’t want to buy a high-conflict diamond or a lab-grown, but they want something unique, with the story to tell.”
Bea Hyman, is a social media and website manager at Hymans Jewellers on Call Lane. She works alongside her brothers Seb and Tim.
Ms Hyman says she has also seen a move towards antique engagement rings this year – and lots of husbands-to-be have been preparing to ask the big question over the Christmas period.
Hymans sells antique jewellery, as well as collectibles and watches – often to customers in the Middle East.
“We’ve got a lot of interest from places like Dubai and Qatar,” she says.
“We do get quite a few visits to the site from America but a lot of the interest for the bigger pieces or the branded pieces is definitely in the Middle East and China,” she says.
She says the influx of Chinese students to Leeds has changed the demographic of buyers.
Students come in to pick things out for family members, which they take home during the Christmas holidays.
“We have a lot of customers yearly that come and specifically go for the jade pieces that we stock or if they come from China they’d go for the more unusual Rolexes.”
Helen YeadonHelen Yeadon, 55, runs an online shop called Nellie’s Trove, which sells antique and vintage jewellery from her home in Otley.
Six years ago she swapped big stones for little ones when she left her family’s Yorkshire stone business for antique jewellery.
“It’s a bit of a change from driving forklifts but I do think there is a link because it’s natural stone and I’ve gone on to lighter, natural gemstones,” she says.
“I’ve always been interested in antiques and jewellery and collecting things. It was a real niche that I love doing and seem to have a natural kind of knack for it.”
She says her biggest market is also the US, where customers like anything with a British Antique Hallmark.
Australia is also an increasingly buoyant market, she says – increasingly sending antique British engagement rings across the globe.
“It is a big, risky thing. I’ve just sent an absolutely gorgeous, antique, handmade ring to Australia,” she says
“He was really pleased with it. So some lucky lady’s getting that.”
