ART-DECO EARRINGS DESIGN

HIGH-END ART DECO OPAL SAPPHIRE DIAMOND CHANDELIER EARRINGS

Our fascination with opals is no secret. This magnificent gem has so many different shades and characters that we can't get enough of making different pieces of jewelry with it.

This time OKG's exclusive Designer/Diamond setter Gary Azatyan has been working on amazing opal and sapphire earrings with a diamond halo around each opal. A while ago Gary got these 2 beautiful pair of organic shaped Australian opals from an exclusive gemstone expo. He has been thinking about turning them into earrings but they were so rare and beautiful that he did not want to rush the process and decided to wait until he figured the perfect style and setting for them. For a while he thought about making 2 separate pairs, however the impact of all 4 in the same pair of earrings would be much bigger of course. So he came up with the idea that gives us the best of both worlds (We will explain how!)

As usual, we started with sketching the general outlines of the design, in order to figure out the actual proportions and the type of gemstones needed to create them.

Here is the sketch. It already started looking beautiful even in this black and white drawing. We are super excited in the workshop. Can't wait to see the actual thing!

Next step was to show the sketch to our CAD designer and review all the details and the angles of the piece before he starts creating a 3 dimensional rendering of it. After long hours of playing with the dimensions, this is how the rendering looks.

Once Gary approved the design, the casting house casted the earrings in 14kt solid white gold and "pre-polished them". After that, he first secured each piece into shellac and started setting the diamonds and the sapphires. What in the world is shellac?? Well it's a trade secret we can't talk about. If we tell you, we have to kill you!

Just kidding!!

Shellac is a resin which is usually used as a brush-on, high gloss protective varnish or sealer. It is scraped from the bark of the trees and is sold as flakes. It is used in many different industries such as woodworking, dental, watchmaking even in construction. We won't tell you what it is made out of but let's say it is all organic and considered as one of nature's miracle products.

Once shellac is exposed to high heat, these flakes melt like hard candy melts and when it is cooled down, it goes back to its rock hard candy type solidness. This allows the jeweler to wrap this sticky resin around a piece of wood that he uses to hold the jewelry in place and secures the casting that will be worked on. Once the shellac cools and dries, nothing can separate the jewelry from the shellac, this way Gary can firmly grip the handle and start setting the stones.

Once the stones are set, Gary applies heat and separates the pieces from the shellac before setting the opals (opals are super sensitive to heat and they would burn and crack almost immediately if he were to set them in the center of the earrings and try to separate them from the shellac!)


Here is how it look s so far:

It already looks amazing! 

 Now that all the other stones are set, Gary will set the center opals and put the pieces together.

Aaand it is finished!! It is absolutely spectacular. This piece of jewelry is a traffic stopper! It is high end, absolutely unique, the quality of the gemstones are to live for. It is a red carpet piece as is. 

However, it gets even better! Like we mentioned at the beginning of our post, since Gary wasn't sure if he wants to make 1 pair or 2 separate pairs of earrings with these 4 opals, he created the earrings in a way that you can actually detach the bottom part and use them as studs for a less formal occasion or even for a lunch with girlfriends. 

 This is how it looks as stud.

No matter how you wear them,  these earrings are a once in a lifetime piece!

Gary decided to call them "Majestic Ocean".