Designing For Your Lifestyle
In this profession, the internet is both our best friend and our worst enemy. On the one hand, our clients are able to come to their design consultations fully armed with plenty of ideas, photos, and knowledge that they can use to design their perfect ring. On the other hand, there is SO MUCH out there, and unless you really know jewelry, it can be difficult to really understand the difference between a good design idea and a bad design idea. One of the reasons why our initial design consultations can take so long is because we dig pretty deep into our client’s lifestyles in order to get a sense of what their definition of “daily wear” will be. An incredibly delicate, dainty design might be a perfectly appropriate idea for one client but be totally out of bounds for another. It all depends on you, your tolerance for maintenance, and your own daily routine.
When designing an engagement ring, for example, if the intended wearer is there then I always ask her how often she plans to wear her engagement ring. Most people say “all the time,” in which case I think it’s really important to create something that has a low profile and a sturdy design that can withstand anything from sticking your hands in your pockets to riding the metro to digging through files to washing dishes. One point I always emphasize is that the engagement ring idea came into popularity when wealthy women (the likely recipients of these tokens) frankly didn’t do these things. You could create delicate rings and not particularly worry about whether she would ding the prongs on her dishwasher. Indeed, what are taken to be antique diamond engagement rings today were often designed as party rings originally - and certainly a socialite would not worry about lifting weights in her ring!
All three of these rings were designed with a heavy antique-inspired aesthetic and all three should be taken off when doing things like lifting weights, sorting through boxes, or anything where they can catch their prongs on something hard. These are mostly-wear rings, not daily-wear rings.
For wedding bands, the current trend is to pursue a delicate, prong-set diamond eternity band that can stack well with other bands. I love this look, but it’s a tricky idea for a ring you’ll want to wear 100% of the time for decades to come. Prong settings are inherently relatively delicate and prongs can easily be bumped out of place even when doing completely innocuous things. It is extremely rare to find a prong-set diamond band that hasn’t lost at least one diamond in 10 years time. If you are the type of person who doesn’t mind a little bit of maintenance over the years then you have nothing to worry about - just expect you’ll need to replace a diamond here or there. But, if you are the type of person who places a lot of sentimental value on the physicality of the piece - for example, if these diamonds are family heirlooms - then I would recommend opting for a more lasting option for daily wear. I think a great solution is to get a simple gold or platinum band as your wedding band and stack the diamond band with that simple band whenever you want. This means you could decide not to wear your diamond band while doing things like going to the gym, but you’ll always have your actual wedding band on as your constant. It also can allow you to create a little buffer between the diamond band and your engagement ring, since often diamond bands can rub against the gallery of your engagement ring and cause long-term damage over years.
A French-set band like this platinum wedding band is another great option for a durable diamond band since each diamond is set in its own collection of prongs, and they are set low in the band for ultimate protection.
There are many, many factors that come into play when creating an investment piece like what we specialize in here at Alx&Co. and we consider it our job to walk you through those elements so that you can make the right decision for your own lifestyle. When you make your design appointment with us, we’ll talk through these details so that we know we’re designing something that not only looks gorgeous in a photo, but also wears beautifully and durably over the years.
