Until a few years back, silver jewelry was treated as junk. Expensive junk, if not just junk. Junk was junkier of course. Everything other than gold was just that: JUNK.
Folks tried to pass off some golden junk as gold.
You see, for the one who wants a certain look, it is not the metal that matters. Sure, color of the metal might matter but not the exactly the metal. You get what I mean?
For the one who wants a certain look, value lies in such things like composition, neatness in craftsmanship, neatness in composition, intricacy of composition, the look on the face, the glow of the face+earrings combo et al. To keep conversations simple, these bits are all bundled as one word: design.