Worn with feeling
On ritual, story, and the women who design with intention
Image sourced from Pinterest
We were catching up over coffee near Broadway Market, one of those rare London afternoons where the sun actually stays. Everyone looked a little softer, a little warmer, faces tipped toward the light. Across the table, my friend reached for her flat white and sunlight caught on her hand—a sudden flicker of gold that made us both pause.
“We designed it together,” she said. “It’s his grandmother’s gold, reshaped to sit better on my hand.”
There was something about the way she spoke—softly, almost without meaning to—that made the moment feel intimate. The ring wasn’t huge. It wasn’t trendy. But it said something. And more importantly, it felt like her.
A shift in what we want to wear
Alighieri jewellery SS20
Jewellery is becoming slower. Not literally—rings and necklaces are still sold online, styled in campaigns, passed between partners and parents—but slower in spirit. Less about what catches the light, and more about what stays on your body without effort. The kind of thing you reach for instinctively, because it fits. Because it holds something.
For a lot of women, the jewellery they value most isn’t necessarily new. It might be a piece passed down. A chain from your mother, a signet ring from your grandmother, something you’ve had since your early twenties. These pieces mark chapters. They wear in. They show up in old photos and become part of your visual history.
More people are asking for that meaning to be part of the design process from the beginning. That’s why bespoke and custom work is on the rise. It’s not just about being different. It’s about being specific, about making something that belongs to you alone.
Designed to remember
Sophie Bille Brahe, Fleur de Tennis necklace
Some designers are responding to that desire with deeply personal collections. Take Rosh Mahtani, the Zambian-British founder of Alighieri, whose jewellery is inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy. Her pieces feel like relics, cast in wax, raw-edged and intentionally imperfect. Each one has a name, a story, a mood. They're made for people looking to carry something symbolic.
In Canada, Kirsty Stone, the designer behind Retrouvai, creates modern heirlooms from recycled metals and gemstones. Her signet rings and pendants often feature hand-engraved symbols—moons, waves, initials—that feel less like accessories and more like personal emblems.
Across the channel, Sophie Bille Brahe crafts jewellery that feels weightless, romantic, and restrained. Her pearl designs are soft and sculptural, named like poetry: Petite Véga, Croissant de Lune. They’re made for women who don’t need their jewellery to shout.
Not everyone is working in minimalism. Bea Bongiasca in Milan makes jewellery that looks like joy made solid—coloured enamel coils, bold stones, and shapes that reference anime, girlhood, and expressive style. They’re bright, but still personal. Still made to be worn often, not just admired from afar.
And in the US, Faris Du Graf, founder of FARIS, makes sculptural pieces that hug the body in surprising ways. Her work feels elemental and slightly off-centre. Jewellery that shapes itself around you, not the other way around.
The new engagement ritual
Nowhere is this shift more visible than in engagement culture. The surprise proposal still exists, but more couples are designing rings together. Choosing stones that are unusual. Reworking heirloom pieces. Opting for rings that fit their lives, not just a box on Pinterest.
The emotional value is no longer in the size or cost. It’s in the collaboration, the process, the story.
Some designers, like Jade Trau, specialise in this kind of quiet ceremonial work. Her custom rings often start with a conversation—not just about style, but about who the person is, what they do with their hands, how they want to feel when they look down.
It’s not that sparkle is out. It’s that significance is in.
And still, we evolve
Meaning doesn’t exclude innovation. In the UK, platforms like BLNG are using AI to let customers co-design jewellery based on personal taste, occasion, or aesthetic. Elsewhere, students are winning design awards for turning hearing aids into statement earrings, combining accessibility with beauty in a way that feels distinctly now.
There are experiments with 3d-printed jewellery, modular systems, recycled metals, and lab-grown gems. None of it is at odds with emotional design. If anything, it widens the range of who gets to participate in the ritual.
The question is whether these tools can replicate the feeling of something deeply considered. Can a ring designed in a minute ever feel like one handed down over decades?
Maybe. Or maybe that’s not the point.
Perhaps the power of jewellery isn’t in how it’s made, but in how it’s worn.
What stays
Back at the café, my friend caught me staring at her ring again.
“I guess it’s become a little habit,” she said, smiling.
And that’s what jewellery does best. It stays with us. It absorbs our lives. It becomes part of our gestures, our speech, our self-image. A private signal. A quiet softness.
We don’t wear jewellery to be seen. We wear it to mark something. To hold on to what matters—who we are, who we were, what we’ve come through, and what we want to carry with us.
Some pieces catch the light. But the ones that stay with us are the ones that carry weight.
