When Lilian N’s son was getting married, she wanted to gift her daughter-in-law a family heirloom. But Lilian recognised that the style of the ring might not be suitable for her taste. She approached Simone Ng, creative director of Simone Jewels, who’d been her go-to jeweller for 16 years. For Lilian, asking Simone to repurpose the heirloom was a no-brainer. “I like her innovative designs,” Lilian says. “She also understands how to match jewellery with different personalities.”Lilian appreciated that Simone insisted on meeting with her daughter-in-law before starting the design process.
“She didn’t just set the ring,” Lilian says, “But she understood my daughter-in-law’s personality and lifestyle before coming up with the design, which suited her very well!” For Simone, such requests are not new. In fact, the jeweller states that she’s been recycling and repurposing her clients’ jewellery ever since she established the business 17 years ago. Contrary to popular belief, repurposing jewellery is not “cheaper than buying new”, nor is it a simple process of extracting a stone and putting it in a new vessel. The process can be quite long, labour- and resource-intensive.
The first step is to authenticate the gemstones and check the pure metal content of the gold or platinum. “For significant gemstones, we encourage clients to have them checked by the gemmologist first. Less than 10% of the time, the gemstone either turns out to be glass-filled or just some other material.” It’s also common to find jewellery falsely stamped as 18K gold but is only gold-plated. These checks are crucial as they can help the client understand the value of their jewel and whether it’s worth repurposing.
Then, the gold or platinum needs to be melted down at high temperatures to extract the pure metal. The greatest misconception is that recycling one’s jewellery is a cheap exercise, as one needs to consider the time and resources the jeweller takes to repurpose, design and craft the new jewel. That’s not to say that one should give up on the idea of recycling and repurposing their jewellery.
To read more in Part 2: https://simonejewels.com/blogs/news/bespoke-jewellery-recycling-part-2
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Writer's Bio:
Karishma Tulsidas is a seasoned content strategist with experience in the lifestyle space across print, digital, and social media platforms. She currently heads the content and communications firm Contente and previously served as the editor-in-chief of Tatler Singapore and Robb Report Singapore & Thailand. With a deep passion for jewellery, Karishma has spent the better part of the last decade writing about this topic. She has had the opportunity to handle some of the most beautiful stones in the world and is fascinated by the unique stories that coloured gemstones can tell.
