JCK spotlights 2026 Jewelers’ Choice Awards winners and finalists

A handcrafted gold necklace set with 32.14 carats of lemon-yellow chrysoberyls set the tone for JCK’s 2026 Jewelers’ Choice Awards, where the loudest message was not restraint but conviction. Vanessa Fernández’s Curva necklace, with its warm gold frame and saturated yellow stones, captured the same appetite for drama that ran through the rest of the winners, from a $725,000 diamond necklace to a $150,000 Australian black opal ring.

The awards were published in JCK’s Best of the Best digital flip-book on May 1, and their appeal comes from where the votes originate: retailers. That gives the honors a particular kind of credibility inside the trade, a peer endorsement from the U.S. jewelry retailing community rather than a purely editorial nod. The competition period ran from September 2 through November 2, 2025, with retail voting due by February 8, 2026.

Among the pieces JCK singled out, Pompos’s Australian black opal ring won Best Colored Stone Jewelry above $30,000 at $150,000, a fitting outcome in a year when richly calibrated color carried real force. Opal, with its shifting fire and unstable flashes, asks more of a designer than a straight-line diamond mount does. It rewards daring metalwork and a setting that lets the stone remain the star. The fact that the judges elevated it suggests retailers are still hungry for jewelry that feels less neutral, more singular.

Rahaminov’s Alexandra necklace, priced at $725,000, won Best Statement Piece over $50,000, while Khepri Jewels’ Cartouche charm fancy color diamond necklace took Best Colored Diamond Jewelry at $286,000. Those two winners point to the same market direction: buyers are still responding to scale, but not just scale alone. They want volume with intention, and color with technical control. Even Parle Gems’ Twilight Moon blue Yogo sapphire earrings, at $17,995, showed how a specific stone can anchor a luxury point of view without needing sheer size to do it.

At the more accessible end, a matte black ceramic stretch bracelet with gold-plated accents from newb2b.fgoldman.com won Best Fashion/Bridge Jewelry under $700 at $695. It was a reminder that the language of high jewelry is filtering down into lighter, more wearable forms, where contrast and material tension do as much work as carat weight. Victoria Gomelsky put it plainly in JCK’s follow-up: brands that keep winning are the ones “not afraid to take risks.” Rahaminov’s 2025 grand-prize Celestial Diamond lariat, with more than 40 carats of white and yellow pear-shape diamonds, showed that instinct was already paying off.