Behind The Design: How We Finessed An Art Deco Design To Perfection

Have you been curious to see the custom design process in its iterative steps? Well, you're in for a treat. This redesign story is many years in the making, with a longtime client who had a vision for an inherited diamond earring…

Our client has been working with us for many years for restoration work and, over time, mentioned a few times that she had an inherited earring that she wanted to redesign. The earring is from a set that she and her sister had split up because neither of them loved the original design and knew they would repurpose the diamonds for something else. Our client thought about what she was missing from her personal collection and finally made an appointment to talk through her design idea. 

When she met with Tim about the design idea, she knew she wanted an Art Deco-inspired pair of elevated, special occasion earrings that would utilize diamonds from the original earring. We didn't need to use all of the diamonds, but she knew she wanted to feature at least the baguettes from the original earring. She also had decided that she wanted to integrate aquamarine into the earrings for a light pop of color. So, we got to work on a design.

We started with a design that featured a scalloped frame that hugged the shapes of the baguettes and rounds that we featured in the design. The original idea was to use her own baguettes and rounds, so when our client decided she wanted something more streamlined, we tried to make the frame as "straight" as possible while still using all her own stones. By then, she realized she wanted a true geometric shape, which required sourcing slightly smaller rounds for the accent stones in order to properly frame the layout. Finally, we re-applied the milgrain to the final draft, which she then approved for production.

In the end, the earrings utilized her own baguettes plus additional Alx&Co. sourced round diamonds and aquamarine. Each iteration of the design came with its own parameters, and we clearly walked our client through the transformations and how the design edits could accommodate her vision. We love the end result: Art Deco, geometric, and stunning - perfection!

If you have pieces that you aren't actively using, make an appointment to talk through how we can creatively reformat them for new life. You might be amazed at the possibilities!