So I saw this post on Instagram last week showing Emily Ratakoski showing off her new “Divorce Rings” (TY NY Times for the in-depth look), and yall, I gotta say - I am HERE FOR IT.
Emily Ratajkowski / Via instagram.com
I’ve found over the years in working with clients one on one in our custom work that we have just as many, if not more, stories where clients are bringing us a piece of jewelry to remake that they actually DON'T want to honor the person whose it once was (or the person who gave it to them). It’s not some special sentimental piece they want to rework - it’s just old stones they have available. They come to us with a piece of jewelry that has gorgeous stones, and although they don’t want to the original sentiment attached to it, they still want to utilize the stones with a new piece (#sustainability). Sometimes these stories are sensitive to share (hence why we don’t shout them from the rooftops quite as often as the sweet and sappy ones), but dang if I don’t love them just as much. For one client, we took a handful of diamonds her father had given to her mother and remade them into a wedding band for our female client’s new wife. A sort of final f-you to the father who didn’t approve of his daughter’s lifestyle. For another client, we took the diamond from her engagement ring from an ex husband and reset it into a cigar band ring she wears on her pointer finger on her right hand just because she damn well wanted to (no occasion at all). Her biggest request was that it not look like an engagement ring anymore, just a gorgeous band she could wear to remind her that she’s a badass all on her own - mission accomplished. Another client had a diamond pendant given to her by a long ago ex boyfriend. Her daughter was turning 16 soon, and she wanted to gift her a pair of classic diamond studs. She figured, I already have one diamond, it means nothing to me sentimentally but why not source another and give them to my daughter who will wear and enjoy these simple studs? It was a resourceful choice in this occasion.
And here’s what I love about each of these clients we worked with - they took matters into their own hands. Those diamonds that maybe held some negative or even neutral story before? That story is gone now - it’s been rewritten by the clients who took charge and OWNED that story. The new pieces mean something entirely different. They mean happier things, empowering things, they mean whatever these female clients decided they wanted them to mean. And guess what? YOU CAN DO THIS, TOO! Even if you don’t have stones at your disposal (because TBH most of us don’t - at least not ones we always l-o-v-e!!), you can still write your own story with whatever jewelry you do have or choose to create. The beautiful thing about adulthood (although it has its sucky moments- can anyone say choosing what you’re gunna eat for dinner every.damn.night?!) is that you get to decide - you get to decide where you live, how you spend your money, what your jewelry means to you. You can write your own story - however you damn well please.
