"It may be possible to gild pure gold, but who can make [their] mother more beautiful?" -- Mahatma Gandhi
Heirlooms are more than just old jewellery handed down to us. They are relics of love and vestiges of our family stories passed down for generations. In looking at family stories and heirlooms, we are particularly fond of telling Lyn and her mum's.
Lyn takes a very different approach to the jewellery handed to her. Knowing that her style differs significantly yet wanting to wear mum's heirlooms more often to keep her close, Lyn approached us with two pieces of jewellery to redesign to suit her style and personality, yet retain the beauty of the original aesthetics.
The Fireworks Ring
Lyn's mother was often described as "the life of every party". So when she brought along her mum's classic jade pendant for us to redesign, we knew we had to add a 'fireworks' element as a metaphor to her mum's exuberant nature.
Although the pendant meant something to Lyn, she wasn't particularly fond of jade, so she challenged us to redesign it such that the jade doesn't immediately scream out as the main gem of the new jewellery. Always loving a challenge, we selected gems in her favourite purple colour, amethyst, and wrapped them around the jade to form a fireworks motif.
Through the process, we've transformed a jade pendant into a ring, combining the old with the new by adding on an attribute of Lyn to a part of her mum.
The Black Humour Ring
Lyn had also come to us with a vintage, Peranakan diamond ring from her mother. Lyn would have worn the ring more frequently had there not been a diamond that fell off the ring.
Instead of filling that spot with a new white diamond, we placed a black diamond -- referencing her cheeky, black sense of humour.
Lyn also wanted a statement In the same vein of adding on a new narrative to an old story, we created an outer ring that could be stacked with the existing ring. The new ring features a pavé of diamonds. All but one of them are in black, with the odd one in white, again a nod to Lyn's humour.
Lyn and her mum's jewellery are just two of the stories we seek to tell through our jewellery. If you've a precious heirloom with an equally treasured tale behind that you want to keep by your side, Carrie K.'s Heirloom Revival service could help you add your own narrative to the heritage pieces and pass them down to the generations to come; discover the process of our Heirloom Revival and read more stories here.
