Jewelry Insider: 2014

What is high end jewelry? Better put, what can be called high end jewelry? This can be a very debatable question and at the same time a question of a clear cut answer. The musts have of fine/high end jewelry in my opinion:

Must be practical, wearable, comfortable
Must be fine in quality of make/technique and materials
Must be made from a genuine original concept design

After 25 years in this business, in my humble opinion, any piece of jewelry that does not carry all of the above is not of high end. I am not in any way degrading other kind of workmanship but only differentiating high end from normal kind of jewelry; again, in my humble opinion.

Must be practical, wearable, comfortable:

Not to go into too many details or many examples, I prefer to mention a very simple example for a wedding band. A wedding band is a very simple circular ring made of a metal. As much as it is a simple design, it can be done in many ways but only one way is a good way to make it fit into this first criteria of high end jewelry. A wedding band should be a nice outer shape and an even better inner form, it must be comfortable to wear and at the same time elegant.

The below images will show you that by making a wedding band outer side domed or "bombée" as they say it in French will give the band a high end finish. As much as important, is to give the inner side also a domed shaped for a comfort fit, thus making the ring fall into this very first important criteria. Producing a non comfort fit ring will make it practical and wearable but not comfortable as the comfort fit.

Both are wearable but the comfort fit

has a better feeling.

Standard fit vs a comfort fit ring.

Notice the nice domed shape of the outer
section and the comfort fit inner part.

An high end engagement ring

with a comfort fit construction.

Another fine example of comfortable and practical jewelry are earrings. Earrings should not be heavy and should not hurt the ear by applying pressure to the flesh. Depending on the weight and form of the earrings, an omega clip or alpa/butterfly system is used. Small studs and light weight earrings have alpa or butterfly system whereas bigger items have omega clips that give a very good level of comfort to the wearer. In addition to grooves that we make on the omega clip, we use clip earring cushions made of silicon. These pads will make the earrings very comfortable to wear for many hours.

These pair of earrings could be considered

heavy to wear by some. Mainly due to the

weight of the drops.

A good way to save on the weight

and have a nicer shape/cut for a

drop is a pendeloque cut drop.

You can notice that it is not a full

briolette but more like an almond

if you like from a profile view.

This flattish shape not only makes

the drop lighter but also gives an

elegant look to the earrings.

Gripper Silicone Earring Cushions

add an extra level of comfort to the wearer

Must be fine in quality of make/technique and materials:

There are so many ways a jewelry item can be made and to most of the consumers, all jewelry are made equal. A jewelry made in a fine quality of finishing a technique can last for very long time and won't lose on its value. Pieces made by Cartier and other renowned jewelry houses many years ago still are wearable and their value increase with time; they become vintage classic jewelry. Those jewelry houses created a name for themselves by producing jewelry with the highest finish and techniques of craftsmen who are true artists.

Many so called "jewellers" create items made of copper wire, stainless, and many other non precious materials and call them jewelry. According to the Oxford dictionary, jewelry means:

"Personal ornaments, such as necklaces, rings, or bracelets, that are typically made from or contain jewels and precious metal"

Yes, you read it right: "precious and jewels" and not "non precious and pebbles." If we are to consider the term jewelry to define any ornament then not all jewelry are created the same. Hence I come to my second point that fine jewelry must be made of fine materials. Yes sometimes jewelry contain non precious materials such as wood and leather but bear in mind that when used, the finest qualities are applied so the final product is to be considered of a high end.

A real jeweller always inspect a piece of jewelry looking t the back of the piece first. The back is more important than the front because in jewelry, the back of the item is considered the foundations of the item. When done properly and with the finest finishing an technique, and item will without a doubt end up a beautiful piece of art. We can within seconds tell if an item is of high end or not by looking how it was done at the back. There we can find all imperfections and poor assembly techniques that can degrade an item.

Below you can see pictures of a 18k (fine metal) center piece of a necklace. Pay attention to how the wires are soldered (technique/high finish), how well polished they are (high finish), and how the whole piece has volume (technique) and is not flat. Finally how the diamonds are set with nice beaded gold prongs (technique/finish)

Side view with a nice volume to the piece

Front view. Look how the 2 steps and inclination of the cups

give a good volume and feel to the piece.

Back view of the piece. See how clean and neatly

soldered the wires are. The good metal polishing

is essential for a high finish.

Nice beads on the setting expose the diamonds in a

very elegant way foe maximum stone exposure and

minimum metal appearance

Must be made from a genuine original concept design

Since not all jewelry are not created equal, they must originate from a genuine unique design. We all get inspirations but a fine jewelry item must have an original idea and execution. I won't elaborate further on this point and I will let a photo of a bangle we produced for a client do the talking.

This post was a long one and I hope you enjoyed it and give me a g+ if you liked it. Bye for now and until next post.

Perhaps inspired by Van Cleef and Arpels, we produced this beta splenden bangle
from an original concept. It was made of 18k gold with diamonds

, rubies, and pink and black mother of pearl inlays.

One thing that annoys me somehow about how jewelry is sold online is how it is presented. A few years back, before the emerging of 3D software for jewelry, most e-tailers used to display online the photos of the real item. These days, more and more e-tailers post their items as a 3D rendered image of the real deal. In my opinion, this is misleading and in most cases consumers do not get what they see.

There is a huge difference between a photo of a real item that was retouched using a certain software and a 3D rendered image of an item. I do agree that if the photograph of an item is posted as is without any retouching might cause some unfair prejudice to the seller; simply because photos of jewelry that are used online are larger than the real size of the item. Therefore, any minute imperfections that cannot be seen with the naked eye (and that are very acceptable quality wise) are blown and they increase the item imperfection dramatically. Also, jewelry is the most difficult to photograph because of metal/stones reflection so unwanted shadows or reflections are prone to appear on a photo. Therefore, retouching is a must to remove such impurities that are not native to the item itself.

So I am for a retouching of an item to certain extents but not to the point of totally covering imperfections 100% because this will be misleading to the client. You noticed that some sites display parts of the item in a magnified manner (like when you use a loupe) when you hover over the item. Needless to say that this feature is useless if the item is totally cleared from imperfections. In my opinion, the photo of the item should be retouched in a way that it preserves the look of the real item yet removing any imperfections that are not seen under the naked eye.

What I am totally against is to use 3D rendered images of the item. Why? because a 3D rendered image display the item in perfect conditions and that cannot be achieved in the real world. There are no perfect and void of any imperfections jewelry items, whether done by us or by any other well known brand name. Take a loupe and you will see what I mean. If you pay attention, you will notice that well recognized brands always display retouched high quality photos of their jewelry and never a 3D rendered image.

Want to verify if what I am saying is correct or not? Buy a jewelry item from a site that displayed perfect 3D rendered jewelry and when you receive your item, check it with a loupe to see the grand canyon :-). Then go to the site, use their magnifying feature to see a close up of the 3D rendered image and you will not see a micro hole there. It is even more scary is that all the gemstones/diamonds on the 3D rendered images are not real! It is impossible for a computer to generated the real correct color of a colored stone for example. So what you are buying is not what you are getting.

Don't be fooled, when buying jewelry online make sure you are getting the item you see online and as close as possible to the real deal. Get what you paid for!