The Party Edit, pearls in Paris and diamonds at your fingertips
Head-turning jewellery for NYE; how to get hold of Sade's trademark earrings, why pearls are so Paris, the hottest Art Basel Miami collab, and diamonds fit for fingertips this party season.
As 2024 draws to a close, we’d like to thank you for your support of the Honesty Box on Jewels. We decided to launch a newsletter together nearly a year ago, and love creating it for you every month. We’re excited to see what 2025 has in store.
Wishing you a happy and healthy New Year 🥂,
Katie & Kate
The Party Edit
The Carla diamond earrings by Sarah Straussberg for aetla
These one-of-a-kind earrings are packed with graphic, sophisticated style. Straussberg’s signature brushed silver is elevated with a pair of diamonds peeping out from gold bezel settings as geometric half-moons cascade down towards the shoulders.
The Soothing Lotus necklace by De Beers
Polished and rough diamonds of many hues come together in this high jewellery masterpiece by De Beers, which can be worn with or without a dazzling diamond drop. With over 1,000 hours of work required to create the fluid diamond collar, this is all the evening inspiration you need.
The Oera Loop diamond ring by Tabayer
The house’s signature motif gets a dusting of diamonds, as full-fat gold twists around the finger in a cocktail ring inspired by Inanna’s knot, an Ancient symbol of fertility, abundance and protection. Because it isn’t a party without a statement ring.
The Jali Celestial bangle by Van Gelder
Channeling the festive night sky in openwork gold, this new piece from Van Gelder features open circles interspersed with mirror-polished, concave domes that shine like polished stones. Handmade in Jaipur, the piece recalls Indian Jali screens in an original and striking piece.
The Lioness earrings by Elhanati
Get the party started with a pair of shoulder-grazing drops like these gold-plated sterling silver earrings by Copenhagen-based house Elhanati. Pair with a minidress and big hair to channel your inner 1990s supermodel.
The Aura chocolate necklace by So-Le Studio
Maria Sole Ferragamo’s holiday collection spotlights twisted metals shavings – or trucioli – reclaimed from the workshop floor, dipped in gold and carefully enamelled. Chocolate and gold are surely the pairing of the season, in this uniquely bold necklace.
Why pearls in Paris are always a good idea
After a look backstage at the costume jewellery of the Comédie Française, L’Ecole School of Jewellery Arts in Paris, supported by Van Cleef & Arpels, just opened its latest exhibition. Paris, City of Pearls explores a mainstay of luxury jewellery that became emblematic of parisian style itself, thanks to trade in pearls between the Gulf region and France.
Between the 1860s and late 1930s most of the pearls fished in the Gulf found their way to France, where they were sold to be used in jewels at the most famous of Place Vendôme houses. Alongside spectacular jewellery, documents and photographs chart the history of the trade in natural pearls, as well as the cultured pearls that arrived in France in the 1920s. They would spark a fashion craze in the city made famous in the Flappers' sautoirs and Coco Chanel’s layered necklaces.
Art meets history and science in the show, at the Ecole’s new location at Grand Boulevards which is well worth a visit for the library and reading rooms alone.
Paris, City of Pearls is at L’Ecole des Arts Joailliers, Hôtel de Mercy-Argenteau, 16 bis boulevard Montmartre, 75009 Paris, until June 1st, 2025.
Piece of the Month: Jessie VE’s diamonds for your nails
Jessie VE has had the best idea we’ve seen this party season: real diamond nail studs for your New Year’s Eve party mani. Set in 18kt gold, the tiny solitaires and stars can be entrusted to your favourite nail artist for a festive glow-up that can be re-used over and over again.
Available as natural diamonds or coloured sapphires, the precious studs can be used to create designs limited only by your imagination and come with clear instructions for your manicurist, and care instructions to ensure that you’ll never look at rhinestones again.
Available at Jessie VE, starting at £65
codebyEdge launches Sade’s hoop earrings
Smooth operators everywhere can now buy their own piece of Sade’s minimalist retro style, as codebyEdge has released a titanium version of a pair of earrings originally designed for Sade back in 2011.
The brand, known for designing personal jewellery using gemstones, Morse code and unique design to convey hidden messages, was commissioned by the singer to design a pair of oversized diamond and gold hoops for her 2011 world tour. Last month, founder Donald Edge recreated the hoops to coincide with Sade’s first music release since 2018, the song Young Lion on the Transa album, which was produced in support of transgender awareness. Made from titanium rather than the gold of the originals, they are 70% lighter on the lobes and are made-to-order featuring the wearer’s own hidden messaging in Morse or binary code, picked out in diamonds.
Wiskup x Shahla presents elegant disorder
One of the hottest launches of Art Basel Miami earlier this month was the Wiskup x Shahla Entropy collection, a set of six cigar gold bands scattered with bezel-set mixed-cut diamonds. Shahla Karimi first met Evan Wiskup, a New York-based architect, when he called on her to design his wife’s engagement ring. The project sparked a new creative collaboration and a shift in creative expression for the jewellery designer, characterised by minimalist, architectural forms.
The new capsule “explores the interplay of ‘figure’ and ‘ground’” by pairing understated gold bands with bold stones, in a joyful reflection of the “architectural rhythms of cities and natural flow of entropy through thoughtfully crafted forms.” We love the thoughtful arrangement of shapes that brings a sense of elegant disorder to the smooth, rounded band.
The Entropy collection is available with both ethically mined natural diamonds or lab-grown diamonds, in coloured golds or platinum, on the Shahla Karimi website.