Style

For his fiancée Meghan Markle’s engagement ring, the UK’s Prince Harry chose diamonds of special significance to himself and his bride, mirroring a growing trend among millennials to create new pieces that feature inherited stones.
   For this ring, a central stone of approximately 2 carats, square-cut with rounded corners, was sourced from Botswana, where the couple slept under the stars early in their relationship. Harry inherited the side stones from his mother, Princess Diana, and set them in the ring “to make sure she’s with us on this crazy journey,” as he said in a BBC interview in November. 
   In one sense, the on-trend three-stone ring is part of a tradition: Royals have been handing down jewels for generations, though not always resetting them. Harry insisted that designer Cleave & Co. respect his input, despite the non-traditional setting for Windsor family jewelry.
   “It’s yellow gold because that’s Meghan’s favorite,” he told the BBC, explaining his choice.

Meaning over money
Unlike his mother, who shocked traditionalists by choosing a ring from Garrard’s catalogue rather than going for bespoke, Harry is reflecting the 21st-century preference for “something old, something new.”
   “It is mainly millennials propagating that trend,” says engagement-ring specialist Victor Canera. “Clients love the significance and meaning behind a stone that’s been in their family for generations.”
   And while millennials are more economically stretched than previous generations, redesigns featuring family diamonds are not necessarily about the money. “I had a client in a rock band who could have definitely afforded a new stone,” he elaborates. “But he chose to use his mother’s diamond for a new engagement ring. She was also very involved in the process of resetting the stone, and it was a meaningful experience for everybody involved.”
   Of course, what is meaningful for the client can be a technical headache for the designer, adds Canera. He advocates doing one’s homework before embarking on a new-from-old ring, to preserve the aesthetics of its original period of manufacture.
   “It’s important to look at the center stone and figure out the time frame,” he says. “Is it an old European cut or old mine brilliant? If an old European cut, is it a more archaic version of the facet design or from the transitional OEC period? Once the period is figured out, you can use designs made for those gems as inspiration.”

Timing is everything
Red-carpet designer Erica Courtney was so touched by the plight of clients who came to her with unloved family heirlooms, she created a line called Repurpose ReLove. “It was born out of a need to help my clients with the emotional toll it took not wearing the jewels they had inherited. The problem was, they just didn’t like them!”
   What these clients often described as “big ugly diamonds” were merely pieces out of time, she explains. “They were never ugly, but sitting in the client’s jewelry box because they hated the setting. When I’m done, it turns into their ‘fabulous diamond ring,’” Courtney relates.
   “I term it ‘creating young jewelry,’” says LA-based Martin Katz, whose clients have repurposed inherited stones into earrings as well as rings. “While some pieces transcend time with their simplicity, styles that are old-world mature-looking do not speak to the millennial generation’s tastes and aesthetics. That’s when I step in,” he adds, relishing the push for creative change.
   “Passing down stones has been popular for many generations, but this one wants to make an old stone new and fresh by giving it a modern twist, which I enjoy,” Katz says.

Three golden rules of repurposing jewels

Tips to consider when incorporating family stones into new designs:

1. Be receptive to the suggestions of clients, whose wishes often defy accepted traditions. “I see millennials becoming more creative in the design process,” says Martin Katz, crediting Pinterest and Instagram with creating an appetite for styles “that would not have been considered a typical engagement ring in the past.” 
   
2. Use the current vogue for vintage designs to create a modern piece true to the aesthetics of the period in which the inherited stone was manufactured, says Victor Canera. He recommends keeping pavé equally true to period by using single vintage or rose-cut diamonds rather than full cuts in the melee.
   
3. Resist requests to reuse every gem in an inherited piece, says Erica Courtney, particularly when it comes to pavé. “I don’t reuse clients’ melee, because it’s usually not pristine and hardly ever the size or color I want,” she notes. Canera, meanwhile, only resets center stones, explaining that “reusing accent stones really ties my hands.”

Image (clockwise): Victor Canera victorcanera.com; Erica Courtney ericacourtney.com; Victor Canera victorcanera.com; Martin Katz martinkatz.com

Article from the Rapaport Magazine - February 2018. To subscribe click here.