New extremes in #normcore

I'm more fascinated than I should be by "normcore," which seems to explain so much. But I thought of it most recently when I saw that another of my excessive fascinations, Into The Gloss, had a spread on... wedding bands for the unmarried. Not in the traditional sense of, a woman will wear one to avoid getting hit on, or a man will do so to project a certain married-man allure. (This is apparently a thing, or so George Costanza believed.) No, because wedding bands are attractive, like, as jewelry. This is demonstrated - how else? - with the use of a naked (but mostly SFW) model smoking a cigarette, and then some other women whose glamor is demonstrated in various ways, but who are there to encourage you to go out and get a wedding band for yourself. Because ITG is ever so persuasive, you may well do just that.

The cynic in me says, ITG is sponsored by one of the jewelry brands mentioned (see the tremendous banner ads for said brand), and they had to come up with something. But why wedding-band chic? Why does that convince, if not because it's the ultimate in conventional jewelry? It seems to fit with the old-lady-chic vibe, in the sense that it's the sort of thing that's cute when someone early-20s or younger does it, or, perhaps a better way to say this is, is a way to highlight that one is so young that, haha, one couldn't be married, one is simply so young and rich and fabulous that one will spend a usual wedding-ring amount on a wedding ring, to wear as a random accessory. I have trouble imagining a woman of a more madame age doing this.