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Inheriting a family engagement ring in its place of buying new is a sentimental (and generous) current—until you don’t identical to the stone, setting, or kind. Nonetheless whether or not or not you’re attempting to differ the shape, add a bit of additional sparkle, or commerce a yellow gold setting for platinum, expert jewelers can help you customise a pre-loved diamond right into a bit you’ll be happy carrying for the rest of your life.
Meet the Skilled
- Jennie Kwon is jewelry designer primarily based in Los Angeles and the founding father of Jennie Kwon Designs. She repeatedly works with consumers to repurpose their heirloom jewelry.
- Ari Madilian is the co-founder of Single Stone, a set of jewelry that mixes heirloom diamonds with stylish design.
Right here is each little factor it’s advisable study the benefits of heirloom stones and the way in which it is best to (and shouldn’t) change them whilst you make them your private, primarily based on two diamond specialists.
The Benefits of Using an Heirloom Diamond
A diamond is eternally—which suggests the equivalent stone your great-grandmother donned a century prior to now can reside a second life as a result of the centerpiece of your private engagement ring (or your fiancé’s).
Handed down means additional sustainable.
Though the diamond enterprise has made a great deal of progress with its sourcing and sustainability initiatives, heirloom diamonds—like the remainder you reuse, from thrifted sweaters to classic furnishings—have a lower carbon footprint than newly-mined and even lab-grown alternate choices. Plus, traditional stones aren’t meant to reside in a discipline. “Diamonds are imagined to last eternally if taken care of accurately, so to have the flexibility to placed on it every day in its place of it sitting someplace in a jewelry discipline or safe is an excellent selection,” says jewelry designer Jennie Kwon.
There are financial perks to a family stone.
Though it’s a fable that an engagement ring should worth as rather a lot as three months’ wage, diamonds nonetheless aren’t low-cost. Using a traditional stone—significantly one which’s elevated readability, has greater color, or is larger than the model new stones that fall inside your value vary—lets you focus your spending on the setting, totally different wedding ceremony costs, or future payments. “No particular person goes to argue with the reality that diamonds are costly!” says Kwon. “For a shopper who has an heirloom stone on the market to them, the selection of repurposing that stone and saving your self from having to spend cash on one different makes good sense!”
You’ll honor a family’s legacy.
Incorporating a stone with sentimental ties to your family members (or your confederate’s) supplies a very good deeper layer of which means to your engagement piece. “A lot of the diamonds we work with have been throughout the family for just some generations, and to consider the historic previous related to that one stone, what it’s seen in its lifetime, is pretty very good,” says Kwon. “There’s an entire lot of which means behind persevering with in order so as to add onto that story by means of giving that diamond another life.”
Jewelry designer Ari Madilian of Single Stone normally works with {{couples}} who choose to deal with heirloom stones. “How pretty is it determining that you just’re carrying a bit that was in your family members for a couple of years and belonged to any individual you favored,” he says. “The sustainability and value monetary financial savings are merely the icing on the cake.”
{Photograph} by Sasithon Photos
The best way to Make an Heirloom Diamond Your Private
Some classic settings on no account exit of trend—nevertheless others look better than a little bit of outdated by the purpose they obtain heirloom standing. “Not that there’s something unsuitable with the ‘80s and ‘90s, nevertheless an entire lot of our consumers will convey dated designs to us from this era, or designs that truly don’t resonate with them personally,” says Kwon. “Usually the objects they bring about about in are too chunky for his or her type, or too fussy.”
Whether or not or not the diamond you’ve been given is in a setting that’s to not your type, is decrease proper right into a type that doesn’t suit your aesthetic, or just needs some expert TLC, the specialists present these dos and don’ts for giving it a personalized makeover.
Do: Enhance the scenario.
Some rings need little better than what Madilian refers to as a spa day: a deep clear and minor repairs. “That’s as soon as we take away the center stone and restore and polish any damages it might have sustained with years of damage and tear,” he says. “The outcomes will convey once more luster to a colored gem or brilliance once more to a diamond. If it is a passed-down piece, this might moreover symbolize the latest start for the person who can be the brand new wearer.”
Don’t: Cut back down the diamond.
If the women in your family members appreciated their diamonds huge and daring while you want your jewelry understated and minimalist, it could be tempting to have a giant diamond trimmed down—nevertheless every specialists warn in direction of this. “As cautious as a diamond- or stonecutter may be, there is no guarantee {{that a}} stone, and far more so an older one, is just not going to be damaged throughout the course of,” says Kwon. Even when your stone survives, you’ll nonetheless end up shedding a substantial quantity of the distinctive (and an increasing number of unusual) gem supplies. As a substitute, take into consideration your heirloom diamond a useful asset you probably can promote or go down ultimately—or commerce it in to purchase one factor a lot much less flashy.
Do: Change the setting.
A personalized setting presents nearly infinite selections for personalizing a traditional stone: Select in your favorite metallic, add aspect stones in a definite type or color, or set the stone elevated or lower. “One factor as delicate as setting a stone lower or elevated throughout the setting or modifying the type of the prongs would possibly alter how the piece is perceived,” says Madilian. “That’s when the experience and the communication of the jeweler you are employed with turns into important.”
Kwon agrees: “For those who want to give your heirloom stone new life, that’s the approach by which to go!” she says. “A straightforward facelift or substitute in design might make you fall in love with a bit that’s been sitting unworn for years.”
Don’t: Change the shape.
Lowering a diamond proper right into a new type poses the equivalent challenges as decreasing it for dimension, along with damaging the integrity of the stone and slashing the value. “There are restricted circumstances the place this may very well be potential,” says Madilian. “For example, in some circumstances, you would possibly recut a princess decrease proper right into a square-step decrease, or a marquis into an oval. Oftentimes, altering the type of the stone ends in important weight discount and is not a financially good choice.”
The exception: “We’re capable of and do normally rearrange the faceting on a stone to current it a very fully totally different brilliance aesthetic with out altering its complete type,” says Madilian. “An enormous, warm-colored, older decrease stone would possibly look a lot much less flashy attributable to its faceting pattern than a rather a lot smaller stylish stone.”
Do: Change the silhouette.
For individuals who actually can’t reside with a diamond throughout the type you’ve inherited, a personalized setting can alter the silhouette, says Kwon. Her Interval setting, by means of which a spherical solitaire is about proper right into a sq. physique, is one occasion; a diamond halo can also soften the corners of square-cut diamond or add definition to a spherical decrease. “Consumers are surprised at how merely altering the setting might make a positive decrease—that they weren’t great into sooner than—enchantment to them,” says Kwon.
Don’t: Destroy a one-of-a-kind piece.
In some circumstances, your jeweler might advocate in direction of redesigning an heirloom ring altogether—significantly when it’s a extremely distinctive work which will’t be recreated. “As an illustration, we love the Art work Deco interval, and when consumers have an real Art work Deco interval ring, we inform them to keep up it the way in which by which it is, as a result of it is like a little bit of paintings,” says Kwon.
Do: Choose a model new wedding ceremony band.
A complementary wedding ceremony band can play a surprisingly huge half throughout the complete look of your wedding ceremony set, whereas making an old style engagement ring look additional fashionable. “Some consumers who’re on the fence about redesigning an heirloom piece uncover the freshness and alter they’re in the hunt for by merely together with a recent band that they prefer to pair with the piece,” says Kwon. “The pairing of outdated and new can create a really cool, eclectic, curated vibe that’s not as easy to recreate with two new objects.”
Madilian moreover makes use of this methodology when resetting a stone isn’t an selection. “We’ll normally advise on learn how to kind the ring in one other approach by together with different bands, which can drastically change the overall look of a hoop on the hand,” says Madilian.
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