Studio Blog5 minute read
What Taylor Swift's ring taught Calgary about custom jewellery
CBC Radio One asked Kat into the studio as a local expert on the most talked about ring in the world. What she said about old European cuts, and about not settling for what is on the shelf.
Earlier this year, CBC Radio One’s The Home Stretch asked Kat to come into the Calgary studio as a local expert. The subject was the ring Travis Kelce had proposed to Taylor Swift with, announced the day before and already the most looked at piece of jewellery in the world.
The host asked for a first reaction. Kat did not hedge.
“Oh, I was elated.”
The reason was not the couple. It was the stone. What Swift had on her hand was an old European cut diamond, a style that predates the lasers and the precision machinery that shape almost every diamond sold today. As Kat put it on air:
“It’s a cushion cut stone, so that’s the outside shape. And then the facets are old European cut. So it’s a little less technical than you would see in today’s diamonds, because they’re cut with lasers and high precision. But the technology of the time made this old European cut what it is, a little bit bougier, a little bit sentimental.”
Why an old cut looks different
A modern brilliant is engineered for maximum return of light. An old European cut was shaped by hand, to different proportions, at a time when the tools and the intentions were both different. The result reads softer and warmer, and it carries its age visibly rather than hiding it.
Kat also pointed at something most of the coverage missed: there is more metal in the ring than the current fashion allows.
“You’ve got more gold than we’re used to seeing on an engagement ring these days, and it’s because the pieces that stand the test of time do have a little bit more metal involved.”
That is a maker’s observation rather than a critic’s. A thicker band gives an engraver room to work, and it survives a life actually being worn. On air she made the point in the most practical way available: the ring has to “stand the test of her excitement on the stage, grabbing the microphone.”
The nerdisms, gladly
Asked what surprised her, Kat went straight to the history, and to why an old stone starts conversations that a new one does not.
“I want to see the history, because it’ll start making people ask questions like, where does this come from? Why is it this way? And as a gemologist, I love the nerdisms of why stones were cut that way.”
What it means for people who are not Taylor Swift
The interview’s most useful minute had nothing to do with celebrity. The host asked whether people might now want more ownership of what they wear, rather than taking what is in the case. Kat said it was already happening here.
“Canadian made is becoming more and more important to individuals in Calgary as well, and we’re looking for people who will make what we’re looking for, not just off the shelf.”
She had context for it too. Gold is at an all time high, and lab grown stones let a budget reach a larger stone than it used to, so the chunkier, heavier look has been arriving in her own consultations for months already. Swift’s ring did not start that. It gave it a picture.
Her own ring
The host noticed Kat was wearing an engagement ring and asked whether it was anything like Swift’s. Not in style, she said, though it is also an old European cut, a round one.
“Lots of intention in my design. My partner and I, we found each other. And it’s like my compass. So there’s a north, south, east, west element to it.”
Which is, more or less, the whole argument for designing a piece rather than buying one. A ring can hold something specific about two particular people, or it can be a ring. Both are fine. Only one of them takes a conversation.
Her closing thought on air is the one we would put on the door of the studio if it fitted:
“There’s lots of custom jewellers here in Calgary. And I just want that for people. I want them to be inspired to create something that represents their stories.”