PROUNIS
Photo: Courtesy of Prounis
when other college students spend While their summer vacation was closed, Jean Prounis 22 was working on chain making, pelletizing and bezel making. “I just fell in love with it,” she laughs. “I found it to be a very meditative process.”
For Prounis living in New York, the muses can fall in strange places: for example, the Greek funerary bench encountered in a museum in Pella The bent legs inspired a pair of exquisite crystal and lapis lazuli earrings – presented in -k gold, like all her creations – at in her latest work. (Grace Wales Bonner and Kaia Gerber are fans.) The author’s favorite Roz ring offers a single stone sunk into a hammered frame.
“Everything has a purpose and is meant to be worn with a purpose,” Prounis declares. Again, she admitted, “I do like injecting some laughs.” She twisted the hoop bracelet on her wrist, acknowledging that its design was actually based on the colorful rubber bracelets she and her high school friends wore. “I haven’t taken it off yet.”
CASTRO SMITH
Photo: Courtesy of Castro Smith
Photo: Courtesy of Castro Smith
become A jeweler was never Castro Smith’s plan. He got stuck in London, where he learned the strict disciplines of engraving and heraldic engraving; he studied metalworking and patina in Japan. But when he started his signet ring business, also in London, “I didn’t want to follow the traditional way,” Smith 29 said. “I wanted to play with textures of ceramics, enamel, different patinas and metals.”
His work is beautifully crafted, but the subject matter is – sometimes eccentric, sometimes a bit weird – that Make your work unique. An early ring he made for the Dover Street Market had an image of a skull stolen from the instructions for incapacitating enemies. Another piece takes the most traditional of symbols, the heart, and shows its pulsating arteries intact. He described a ring he made to commemorate a couple’s first date with a small piece of sushi carved into it. “This is their little secret.”
DARIUS
When Darius Khonsary was five, her Persian grandmother gave her a custom-made pendant, which she described as a “Rubik’s cube”. This was the beginning of a strong love for jewelry. “It’s magic, history, and my culture, all tied together,” Los Angeles 34 Said Craftsman, 22.
Photo: Courtesy of Darius .
Khonsary’s pieces are delicate yet slightly rough, everything is finished in satin 22-karat gold. (Zendaya is the proud owner of a beautiful custom diamond and sapphire necklace.) Her zodiac collection breathes life into this well-worn category; rings flaunt bold color combinations. The Sisters necklace is based on the motif of an ancient cylinder seal. If the roots are ancient, the result is very modern. Khonsary, one of the first openly trans women to work in fine jewelry, wants her work to speak for itself—“but there’s no distinction between what I do and who I am.”
