Jewelry shopping in istanbul turkey I often get asked where I buy jewelry in Istanbul, mostly by people who are soon about to make a trip there and want some information about it. Well first of all, I'm not a local and my taste might not be yours but when I'm here I tend to look for "exotic" pieces, be it rings, necklaces or whatever.
The variety here is truly amazing: you can find everything ranging from historic Ottoman designs to traditional yellow gold, diamonds or other precious stones to contemporary pieces in silver. For a quick jewelry fix I mostly reach out to silver or gold-pleated ones but to be honest, mostly mine are just metal. If you take them off when washing your hands and don't spray perfume on your necklace you can keep them for quite some time.
So where should you go? The one place with the largest variety is probably the Grand Bazaar, which by the way is the world’s oldest shopping mall, having been established in 1453. Since it's a touristic hot-spot the prices are higher than somewhere else. The bazaar is so large that you probably won't be able to enter every street of it but once you get out of it the street east of the bazaar on the way to Sultanahmet is also lined with jewelry shops.
The Egyptian (Spice) Market also has several jewelry stores but I mostly buy mine in the streets surrounding the Spice market. But be aware that there are also many stores who only do wholesale. If all that fails, you probably end up at one time or other on Beyoglu's Istiklal street anyway so you might as well shop there...