Dieter first came to us wanting an engagement ring that was big, bold and striking. His inspiration was an antique Cartier orchid ring and he knew that his girlfriend loved yellow diamonds so this was a great starting point. Giving clients the guidance and advice they need is what we love to do here at London Rocks, but it always helps when the client has a clear vision of what they want.
We started by sourcing a number of gorgeous yellow diamonds in a variety of shapes and tones. These sort of stones aren’t in abundance and it’s sometimes difficult to get exactly what the client is looking for, especially at short notice. Dieter really had a great grasp of what his girlfriend would like and he had decided on a pear shape stone with a beautiful cut and colour. From this, we knew exactly what we were setting out to achieve, an extravagant, luxurious Orchid ring to rival that of Cartier or Boucheron.
We wanted to give Dieter something exceptional as he had trusted us based upon recommendation and this was going to be a very unique and special piece. It was going to make a huge statement and would definitely be a strong talking point and conversation starter.
For a piece this large, we needed to give the design a real organic flow, which is something that other orchid ring designs lacked so we chased out the petals individually by hand using a lead cake and a combination of domers and punches. Using a solid block of lead, we made the bulbous shapes to hand craft the movement of each individual petal.
After the main metal work was complete we set the yellow pear shape diamond, centre stage, into an 18ct yellow gold prong setting. This highlighted the yellow colour of the stone and set it apart from the rest of the ring which was made in platinum.
When looking at orchids in detail there were often pink veins running through the delicate white petals so we decided to incorporate this by setting natural pink diamonds strategically amongst the brilliant white diamonds giving the petals a subtle contrast and depth.
The final design feature that made the piece truly unique and bespoke was a freeform vine style band that was also set with natural pink and white diamonds to pull the piece together as a whole.
For this piece, we were able to use a range of skills and really show the difference between hand-made jewellery vs something churned out of a factory and the attention to detail and skills required on a hand-made piece means that the back will look as interesting as the front.
The only thing left was for Dieter to smuggle the ring with him to a hotel in France undetected and do the deed!