Dear Lee,

Decorating magazines, websites, newspapers, and even museum exhibits, are telling us patterned wallpaper, patterned custom-made rugs and carpets, even patterned expensive designer dresses are the latest style. Flowers and bright colors are back, popular with the generation who doesn’t remember that look in earlier days. No one is quite sure if the styles are inspired first by antiques shop merchandise or museum displays of special unfamiliar decorative arts. Or did some young 2016 designers, looking for something different, go back to forgotten 1960s colors and patterns?

Read magazines and newspapers to learn what might be in flea markets and antiques shops that could look “contemporary.” It’s the same with jewelry. Charm bracelets and two-tone gold “bow pins” with rubies were the choice of teenage girls in the late ʼ40s and ʼ50s. Both came back a few years ago. So I checked with the business magazines that forecast future trends in jewelry to see what will soon be wanted by customers.

1) Tiny earrings, colored stone studs, or even tiny hoops. You might have a vintage pair of small cufflinks that could be changed into perfect earrings.

2) Free-form rings and necklaces. Some Victorian necklaces and modernist jewelry of the ʼ50s will work.

3) Y-shaped necklaces and thin chains with a thin drop hanging in front. If you can find a baby bib pin, put the straight pin through links so part of the chain hangs below it. The loop around the neck and the hanging piece below form the Y.

4) Look for opals and moonstones. They are the new “hot” stone.

5) And if you are looking for a wedding ring, it is very avant-garde to ignore the diamond solitaire and get colored stones, rose-cut or black diamonds, or just a simple textured band that looks handcrafted. As they say, “Everything old is new again.”