Fine Bridal Jewelry

It’s All In The Ingredients


A huge factor in the price of any piece of jewelry is obviously what materials have gone into it. This is especially true in bridal jewelry, where recent trends have tended to favor showier pieces that, to keep them in the average bride’s price range, are being made with less expensive ingredients.

Two of these ingredients you see the most of recently are crystals (frequently transparent) and faux (i.e., fake) pearls. Marketers and such for companies who sell these products will tell brides that they will give them the sparkle of diamonds and the shine of pearls for a fraction of the cost of the real things. This is true, to a point. Cut crystals are definitely sparkly, and faux pearls are white and round, but that’s about where the similarities end. Real, natural pearls have a depth and a luster that faux pearls can’t match. Plus, true pearls are not stark white like many faux pearls are – they have a much softer color. Same is true for crystals – they might look good by themselves, but compared to the real thing (be it diamonds or any kind of genuine gemstones) there’s no contest.

Jewelry like this tends to remind me of actors on stage. They look great from a distance, but get up close and they look a bit unnatural from all the makeup. And that, to me, is the worst part of the whole thing: You shouldn’t have to put your bridal jewelry away after the wedding because it doesn’t look good with anything but your gown and that only while brightly lit. You should be able to enjoy your pieces all the time, however you happen to be dressed and for whatever the occasion. Sure, the real thing is more expensive. But trust me, you’ll be glad you did.

Next up: Gold plate vs. gold-filled vs. vermeil. What the heck do they all mean?

Handmade Earring Guide

Handmade vs. Hand-Assembled: Let’s Talk Ear Wires

What are usually called “French wires” or “French ear wires” are one of the most common accessories to a pair of dangle earrings. They are also almost never made by hand. The vast majority of jewelers will buy these in bulk from a finding manufacturer. Why? Because good ear wires are a hassle to make – expensive and time-consuming. Think about it: you have to cut a piece of wire (silver, gold, whatever) to the correct length, bend the curves in it just so, and then somehow either attach a ring to the end or ball up the metal with a torch so that your dangle won’t slip off. Make a mistake with the torch? Then you either cut off the end and try again, which means the final wire will be shorter than you wanted, or you add the wire to your scrap pile and get another one. Lots of bother.

So why make them by hand? Well, even though it’s a pain, there are a lot of benefits to the customer in a good pair of handmade French wires. The first one is that the size of the wires can be customized exactly to the size of the earrings. If the earring pendant is very small, the last thing you want is a huge ear wire – the back of the wire will hang lower than the earring pendant itself. Same is true conversely – you don’t want a really short wire with a long or heavy earring; it just doesn’t look right, and won’t be comfortable.

Another reason is that making wires by hand allows the jeweler to adjust the stiffness of the wire, most frequently by annealing the metal to the desired strength with a torch after shaping. The ideal wire should be able to flex a bit, but should always spring back exactly into place. If the metal is too hard the wire could snap, if it’s too soft it will easily bend, neither of which are good, and neither of which can be controlled very well with prefab wires.

Next is comfort. Since many pre-made French wires are cut by machine, the end of the wire (the bit you put through your earlobe) can often be rough, or in cases of cheaper wires, even sharp. When making wires by hand, however, the jeweler will take the time to file the tip end of the wire smooth and round, so that there’s no risk of it causing pain when going through the ear.

Now of course, all the extra labor and knowledge that goes into making French wires by hand will tend to increase the cost of the final pair of earrings, and it is the customer’s decision ultimately whether or not it’s worth it. But hopefully now, at least, they’ll know what they’re paying for.

Next time: This series continues as we talk about differences in metal and gem quality and how that affects price. Stay tuned!

How to Recognize Handmade Jewelry

Or, Why can similar looking pieces have widely different costs?

Part 1

To kick off our occasional series of posts about jewelry and the jewelry business, I wanted to talk about a question we hear quite a bit at Saori C. Jewelry Designs – “I see lots of earrings and necklaces on different sites that look very similar. How come some of them are much more expensive than others?”

The short answer is, in all honesty, “you get what you pay for.”

The long answer, and what I want to start talking about today, is that there are a lot of factors, including the labor involved in the piece, the quality and scarcity of the materials, the difficulty of the design, and the brand itself.

Let's talk about labor first, as how much (or how little) labor goes into a piece is one of the easiest things for a jeweler to control, and in many cases, one of the hardest things for customers to notice. A good example of this is the difference between “handmade” and what I like to call “hand-assembled.”

“Handmade” means exactly what the word implies – made by hand. If you tell me that your necklace is handmade, then I expect that everything, from the chain to the clasp, was made (forged, hammered, soldered, whatever) by you. “Hand-assembled” is different. If you went out and bought the clasp, the chain, the bangles, etc., mass-produced from a store somewhere, and then just put them together to make a necklace, that’s “hand-assembled,” and that’s quite different. To be fair, very few pieces of jewelry are entirely “handmade,” as most of us aren’t out mining and cutting our own gemstones or refining our own gold and silver, but the degree of “handmade-ness” greatly impacts both the time it takes to make a piece, and the skill and resources (i.e., cost) required to do it. That, as you might imagine, can have a large influence on the final price.

As some jewelers these days use “handmade” when they really should say “hand-assembled,” it’s important for customers to be able to recognize the differences between the two. We’ll look at some of those differences in our next post. Stay tuned!

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous 2010!

It's amazing to think that the new year is here already - time has certainly been flying by...

We wanted to start off the new year by sharing a new design, our Whisper Earrings. These are brand new, and not yet listed on http://www.saoric.com/. They're made of beautiful white cultured freshwater pearls, sterling silver, and blue chalcedony - not a stone you see that often, but we really like the delicate glow and color that it lends to these earrings. Hopfully they'll provide a little "whisper" of happiness to start the year. :) If you would like more information about these, please contact us via our Web site!