Redesigning An Heirloom: A Ring That Changes Hands

How inherited jewelry can be reimagined for the present while preserving the memory, material, and meaning carried forward.

Heirloom Jewelry: On Resetting a Ring and Making It Your Own

Every piece we make begins in conversation. The With Others series traces those exchanges with collectors, collaborators, and friends whose perspectives inform the work...and become part of it.

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We started a conversation with photographer About Liz De La Piedra about designing a future heirloom. From the start, it was about so much more than a ring.

A photographer from Peru by way of Australia, Liz is now based in Chicago where she lives with her two children. When we began discussing what she wanted to create, she explained how she was at a specific threshold in her life: she’d intentionally closed one chapter of marriage, and as her new chapter began to take shape she wanted something that could both mark this moment and witness it: a symbol for who she was becoming.

“I love being divorced. I loved being married, too, but it’s nice to almost have a new life. I like that. I think things change and there’s no way around that. It often can be really challenging but it also always seems to happen for a reason. It’s nice to get older and know who you are.”

She explained how, among her two kids, her older son will eventually inherit her original wedding ring, but also she wanted something precious she could pass on to the second.

“I want my son to see the ring and also know what it signifies…. that it was from the year that it was just me, him, and his brother, and we fell more in love every day.”

We worked with Liz in our Brooklyn studio at every step of the design. She knew what she was drawn to: a white diamond, emerald-cut, something with real presence on her hand. Together we talked through all the details: how the stone would sit, how the band would wear on her hand. She knew she wanted to incorporate a detail that connected it to her sons (and originally hoped to include a baby tooth), but since teeth dry and become brittle, we found another way to bring in their presence. The final design became an evolution of our Dyad signet: two stones, for two sons. She's saving one thing for later: an engraving on the inside, her sons' Quechua middle names, Inti Raymi, for when the time is right.

A Moment To Mark

A ring can carry so much. The end of something. The beginning of something. A decision to preserve what mattered, and pass it forward. If you're holding a moment like that we'd love to hear about it: repurposing heirloom jewelry, redesigning a wedding ring, creating a custom piece that can become an heirloom jewelry for the next generation.

Book An Appointment Reset Your Heirloom

Choose Your Diamond

[lifestyle]Pear Cut Diamond Dyad Signet Ring

Jewelry to be worn, kept and carried forward.

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Jewelry to be worn, kept and carried forward.

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