More Options For Jewelers In The Future!

Pretty Soon, Your Gold Wedding Band Can Be Any Color You Want

Researchers have figured out how to use a specific engraving technique in order to alter the frequency of light a metal—any metal—absorbs or reflects. How? By carving tiny rings, smaller than the wavelengths of light.

Gold normally absorbs blue light, which gives it its yellowish hue. Silver metals absorb and emit just about every frequency of visible of light (which means... they're actually colorless).

By carving a pattern of rings onto a metal's surface, the properties of its electrons, called the resonant frequency, is altered. By varying the size and depth of these rings, the frequency of light a metal absorbs and reflects is changed. No other properties of the metal are affected.

This is essentially the same technique that scientists are using to create invisibility cloaks, except that instead of trying to make light pass through a material, they just want to redirect how light is reflected and absorbed.

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Above is an article I came across at a tech blog. It is fascinating how far technology has come and is becoming more influential in Jewelry. Although there are many problems to be resolved before applying this kind of technique, it will be interesting to see where it might lead jewelers in the future.

-Steve Oh

Hannah Keefe Jewelry

I came across these necklaces (and 1 pair of earrings) by Hannah Keefe and thought a lot of you would really like them...

I love the use of chain and solder to create patterns and movement. So simple and smart.

Did a little research and found she graduated from MassArt in 2004.

xo

zoë

via iko iko

Picture Perfect Parure

On picture day in second grade, I snuck in some of my favorite jewelry to wear for my school portrait. I was immortalized wearing a necklace, a brooch, and a pair of earrings that I certainly didn't leave the house wearing that morning. It was pretty surprising for my family to receive the packet of photos documenting me in all my bejeweled glory.

Even at eight years old, I had a desire to be photographed in my favorite jewelry. I thought the jewelry was beautiful, and therefore I would be beautiful. Despite the fact that none of the jewelry matched, it was a parure that made me feel so special, I don't think I ever took a school portrait that was a memorable since then.

I like to look at pictures of other women wearing their jewelry. I hunt through books at the library, and scan the internet for images of women displaying their collection of jewels. For a while now, I've been collecting portraits of ladies decked out in full regalia, wearing a menagerie of diamonds, pearls, and other precious bobbles. There is something about the way that these women look, the expressions on their face, that reflects how the jewelry makes them feel on the inside. As if the weight of the adornment actually lightens their mood and their raises their spirits. Like a child playing dress-up.

Here is a sampling of some particularly nice images below. I concentrated on women wearing pearls for this selection. Unfortunately, I don't have names for all of the ladies.

Above: Empress Alexandra Feodorovna

above: Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna