Montana Sapphire

I fell in love with fine jewellery as a child, when I used to hunt through my mother’s jewellery box and discover all the different treasures she had. While diamonds are my first love when it comes to gemstones, sapphires and rubies (Corundum) are absolutely mesmerising with the diverse range of colours that can be found in this variety of gemstone - literally any shade of the rainbow! Their hardness, classified as a “9" on the Moh’s scale of hardness, also makes them easily wearable for daily use, and appropriate for jewellery that lasts a lifetime. While diamonds are commonly associated with engagement rings, this is actually a more recent development, and was only made popular in the late 1940’s, when DeBeer’s launched their famed “a diamond is forever” campaign. I love seeing my non-traditional brides step outside of the box and create engagement rings with the versatile colours of sapphires and rubies. Certain types of sapphires and rubies are actually so rare, that they can sometimes be priced even higher than a diamond.

Stone Selection

My client had already done some research prior to meeting with me, and was certain that she didn’t want her main stone to be a diamond. Instead she was exploring sapphire options, where the stone would ideally be multi-coloured, and reflecting the beautiful blues and greens of the ocean; something that had special meaning to her and her partner. Although we first tried to search for sapphires in this colour in Asia, we quickly realised how difficult it would be, because the market in Asia appreciates the more intense royal and violet deep blues that are commonly associated with the word “sapphire.” Instead we decided to search in North America where my client is originally from, and where we knew we’d be able to find the type of colour she was interested in. Montana sapphires are spectacular as they also come in nearly every colour of the rainbow, and the stones we sourced for her had a magnificent colour-change characteristic, where in different lights, the stones reflected a multitude of different colours. 

The mounting stage is incredibly important during the bespoke process, because it allows for a checkpoint when I can do a bit of quality control, make sure the design is taking shape as expected, and also double check the size and proportions of the ring. It can always be a bit scary for the client because the ring looks very raw and unfinished at this stage, with none of the stones set yet, and the claws also look quite long and protruding. Luckily my client had really bought into the bespoke journey, and was equally as excited to see the mounting as the final product. We discussed her questions, and I explained the transformation that the piece would go through to become a final product.