Three Australian jewellers are giving family treasures new life
Erede, Monika Ruggerino and Olivia Bond are reinventing inherited heirlooms into modern jewellery. Divorce rings included.
In author Stephanie Danler’s essay The Unravelers in The Paris Review, she writes of her great-grandmother’s snake ring, a ring she has inherited. Like most pieces of jewellery kept and passed down, it has a story behind it. And this one was that it was made from the gemstones accumulated by her great-grandmother through various marriages. All of the pieces that had made her into the woman she is.
It’s a story that resonated with Emily Ratajkowski, who made the decision to reset her toi et moi engagement ring into two “divorce rings” following the 2022 breakdown of her marriage to Sebastian Bear-McClard.
“I loved the idea of a ring unabashedly representing the many lives a woman has lived,” the model, author and podcaster told Vogue US in a 2024 interview.
Ratajkowski might have coined the divorce-ring moniker, but the concept of giving new life to a piece of jewellery is something with which Sydney-based jeweller Monika Ruggerino is very familiar.
So much so that she has a chair in her inner-Sydney studio that she calls “the crying chair”. Jewellery, says Ruggerino, carries a lot of sentiment.
“Before we even begin the discussion about what it is that they’d like to do with the jewels, clients automatically go into a storytelling process,” she says.
“I think it’s an important story to share between myself and them. Part of, I suppose, turning over of a new leaf. They need to tell that story and I want to hear it because it’s important that sentiment is instilled within the new pieces that we create together.”
Recent favourites have included an antique ring inherited by a mother and her two daughters that had sat in a box for 10 years. That single ring became three rings, each of the antique stones set in a way that reflected its new wearer while also honouring the woman who bequeathed the trio the original piece.
“They’re now living all overseas in different countries. But I still speak to them from time to time, and they’re connected through this incredible heirloom,” says Ruggerino.
Sydney-based jeweller Jeramie Hotz launched Erede, the fine jewellery brand with a focus on bold and sculptural designs, with fashion designer Talia Shuvalov in 2023. And Hotz says resets have become a big part of the Erede business, with clients tending to come to them with a surer sense of their own personal tastes and styles but ultimately also themselves.
“Any Erede client is really coming to us because they’re wanting something different and unique. You’re not coming to Erede for a traditional setting by any means. I honestly think the clients are wanting something that is a representation of them now,” Hotz says. “I think Erede has such a distinct point of view in terms of design and they want to be a part of that.”
Also, as the jeweller notes, people change. “I think that over [time] we evolve as humans, we change our taste and it’s so interesting. [Clients] want to be able to wear something that reflects ... their dress sense, their overall style, whether that’s what they love in terms of design or food. It’s all sort of coming together.”
A piece that particularly resonates for clients bringing in their own jewellery to be reset is the Delta signet ring, says Hotz of the strong and sculptural design. She’s had some divorce rings and also pieces created to mark the different life seasons.
The stories behind the original pieces is something Sydney jeweller Olivia Bond connects with, too. Often her clients bring in gemstones inherited from family members that they are unsure what to do with, such as large aquamarines from cocktail rings of the ’20s and ’30s. Other times they want Bond to reset their engagement rings into one of her designs, her most popular being her Scallop setting.
“What tends to happen with my resets is people have these stones sitting in a safe or in their jewellery box that they’ve inherited and they mean something to them, but they don’t know how to wear them. Or they’re in a setting that’s outdated,” says Bond. “Then they suddenly see something, [for example] I would launch the Bubble collection and they go, ‘Ooh, I’ve got a citrine. I could put that in that’, and they approach me with that in mind.”
When it comes to resetting engagement rings in particular, Bond says there has been a shift toward embracing individual preferences. “Often it’s a chunky yellow gold and they want different colours in it, and for the wedding band, they’re going to wear it on their other hand or they’re going to wear it on another finger. It’s a totally different ring that they’re not stacking. The rule book has been thrown out,” says Bond. In part, she says, because more and more women are now purchasing their own jewellery and also because modern marriages tend to be more equitable. Women have more say in what they want.
“We get so many self-purchasing female clients, where a generation ago there probably weren’t as many and the generation before that, there were none. So things have changed,” she says.
The creative process for a bespoke design – as opposed to resetting a stone into an existing design from the jewellers’ collections – tends to start with a discussion about a client’s preferences and tastes. Where she spends her time, for instance; how she lives her life. “It always starts with a conversation with Talia and myself and the client, and we really just are on the phone for an hour and we want to know what they like, what they don’t like, their interests. There’s always an amazing story about the stone, always. There’s always a backstory,” says Hotz.
“From there, we go away and compile all the information we’ve received and we start looking at the stone and the shapes and the forms that can inform the next phase and iteration of that design.”
“Every reset we’ve done now, we are like, ‘They’re so part of the Erede family’; we’re very close,” adds Hotz of the connection the resetting process fosters.
All three jewellers are seeing more interest from clients keen to bring in antique and old-cut diamonds that they may have inherited.
Erede works with antique diamonds, as well as resetting stones brought in by clients and the lab-grown diamonds with which Erede was initially launched.
Hotz loves antique stones for their character – cut to sparkle by candlelight and, unlike a perfect lab-grown diamond, they’re unique. “Obviously it’s the history and the fact that it’s probably had many lives. I love that,” she says.
“Also, I think from a sustainability point of view, it works with the Erede ethos. We only work with reclaimed stones in our collection, aside from the lab-grown diamonds. We’re not buying from the mines, for instance. So we work with dealers all over the world to acquire the best stones and the old European cuts and the antique stones; they’re so special and beautiful and they’re unique. You are not seeing a hundred of the same stones.”
What her clients are really seeking, adds Hotz, is a future heirloom; the kind so perfectly tailored to an individual that its next wearer will always be able to keep them close. “I think it’s become a lot more sentimental. I think people are really buying, I don’t want to say the word ‘investment pieces’, but it’s something that is unique and an investment for sure, but it is going to be around forever.” And can of course be again reborn.
Watch our new video series, Design Driven with jeweller Jeramie Hotz at theaustralian.com.au/life/wish.
This story is from the August issue of WISH.
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