Find out how to Recut, Reshape, and Reset an Heirloom Engagement Ring

Inheriting a family engagement ring in its place of buying new is a sentimental (and generous) reward—until you don’t identical to the stone, setting, or vogue. Nevertheless whether or not or not you’re attempting to change the shape, add barely additional sparkle, or commerce a yellow gold setting for platinum, expert jewelers will make it easier to customise a pre-loved diamond right into a bit you’ll be comfy carrying for the rest of your life.

Meet the Skilled

Jennie Kwon is jewelry designer based totally in Los Angeles and the founding father of Jennie Kwon Designs. She incessantly works with purchasers to repurpose their heirloom jewelry.
Ari Madilian is the co-founder of Single Stonea gaggle of jewelry that mixes heirloom diamonds with trendy design.

Right here is the whole thing it is important to search out out about the benefits of heirloom stones and the best way you have to (and shouldn’t) change them whilst you make them your particular person, in response to 2 diamond consultants.

The Benefits of Using an Heirloom Diamond

A diamond is perpetually—which suggests the an identical stone your great-grandmother donned a century up to now can dwell a second life as a result of the centerpiece of your particular person engagement ring (or your fiancé’s).

Handed down means additional sustainable.

Though the diamond commerce 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 choices. Plus, traditional stones aren’t meant to dwell in a subject. “Diamonds are imagined to last perpetually if taken care of appropriately, so to have the power to placed on it daily in its place of it sitting someplace in a jewelry subject or safe is an effective risk,” says jewelry designer Jennie Kwon.

There are financial perks to a family stone.

Though it’s a delusion that an engagement ring ought to cost as rather a lot as three months’ wage, diamonds nonetheless aren’t low value. Using a traditional stone—significantly one which’s better readability, has larger coloration, or is larger than the model new stones that fall inside your funds—allows you to focus your spending on the setting, completely different wedding ceremony costs, or future payments. “No individual goes to argue with the reality that diamonds are expensive!” says Kwon. “For a client who has an heirloom stone accessible to them, the selection of repurposing that stone and saving your self from having to place cash into one different makes good sense!”

You’ll honor a family’s legacy.

Incorporating a stone with sentimental ties to your family members (or your companion’s) gives a superb deeper layer of which suggests to your engagement piece. “Quite a lot of the diamonds we work with have been throughout the family for quite a lot of generations, and to contemplate the historic previous related to that one stone, what it’s seen in its lifetime, is pretty excellent,” says Kwon. “There’s plenty of which suggests behind persevering with in order so as to add onto that story by giving that diamond but another life.”

Jewelry designer Ari Madilian of Single Stone often works with {{couples}} who choose to give attention to heirloom stones. “How gorgeous is it determining that you just’re carrying a bit that was in your family members for just a few years and belonged to someone you actually preferred,” he says. “The sustainability and worth monetary financial savings are merely the icing on the cake.”

{Photograph} by Sasithon Photos

Learn to Make an Heirloom Diamond Your Private

Some classic settings on no account exit of vogue—nevertheless others look better than barely outdated by the purpose they obtain heirloom standing. “Not that there’s something flawed with the ‘80s and ‘90s, nevertheless plenty of our purchasers will convey dated designs to us from this era, or designs that mainly don’t resonate with them personally,” says Kwon. “Usually the gadgets they convey in are too chunky for his or her fashion, or too fussy.”

Whether or not or not the diamond you’ve been given is in a setting that’s to not your fashion, is decrease proper right into a type that doesn’t suit your aesthetic, or just desires some expert TLC, the consultants present these dos and don’ts for giving it a personalized makeover.

Do: Enhance the state of affairs.

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 wear and tear 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 one who can be the brand new wearer.”

Don’t: Decrease down the diamond.

If the women in your family members favored their diamonds massive and daring if you favor your jewelry understated and minimalist, it might be tempting to have an enormous diamond trimmed down—nevertheless every consultants warn in opposition to this. “As cautious as a diamond- or stonecutter is also, there is not a guarantee {{that a}} stone, and rather more so an older one, will not 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 increasingly unusual) gem supplies. Instead, take into consideration your heirloom diamond a useful asset chances are you’ll promote or transfer down in the end—or commerce it in to purchase one factor a lot much less flashy.

Do: Change the setting.

A personalized setting provides nearly infinite selections for personalizing a traditional stone: Resolve to your favorite metal, add aspect stones in a singular type or coloration, or set the stone better or lower. “One factor as delicate as setting a stone lower or better throughout the setting or modifying the type of the prongs could 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 essential.”

Kwon agrees: “In the event you want to give your heirloom stone new life, that’s the easiest way to go!” she says. “A straightforward facelift or exchange in design might make you fall in love with a bit that’s been sitting unworn for years.”

Don’t: Change the shape.

Chopping a diamond right into a model new type poses the an identical challenges as slicing it for measurement, along with damaging the integrity of the stone and slashing the value. “There are restricted circumstances the place this is ready to be doable,” says Madilian. “For example, in some cases, you may 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 necessary weight discount and is not a financially intelligent risk.”

The exception: “We’ll and do often rearrange the faceting on a stone to current it a really fully completely different brilliance aesthetic with out altering its complete type,” says Madilian. “A giant, warm-colored, older decrease stone could look a lot much less flashy on account of its faceting pattern than a rather a lot smaller trendy stone.”

Do: Change the silhouette.

For many who actually can’t dwell with a diamond throughout the type you’ve inherited, a personalized setting can alter the silhouette, says Kwon. Her Interval settingwhereby a spherical solitaire is prepared proper right into a sq. physique, is one occasion; a diamond halo could soften the corners of square-cut diamond or add definition to a spherical decrease. “Consumers are shocked 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 cases, your jeweler might advocate in opposition to redesigning an heirloom ring altogether—significantly when it’s a extremely distinctive work which will’t be recreated. “For example, we love the Paintings Deco interval, and when purchasers have an real Paintings Deco interval ring, we inform them to take care of it the easiest way it is, as a result of it is like a little bit of art work,” says Kwon.

Do: Choose a model new wedding ceremony band.

A complementary wedding ceremony band can play a surprisingly large half throughout the complete look of your wedding ceremony set, whereas making an previous fashion engagement ring look additional updated. “Some purchasers who’re on the fence about redesigning an heirloom piece uncover the freshness and alter they’re looking out for by merely together with a recent band that they wish to pair with the piece,” says Kwon. “The pairing of outdated and new can create a really cool, eclectic, curated vibe that isn’t as simple to recreate with two new gadgets.”

Madilian moreover makes use of this method when resetting a stone isn’t an risk. “We’ll often advise on how one can vogue the ring in any other case by together with assorted bands, which could drastically change the final look of a hoop on the hand,” says Madilian.

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