The Fine-Jewelry Names to Know For 2024
From lovers of geometric, art deco silhouettes to makers of romantic, heirloom-inspired jewels – these are the jewelers worth adding to your NET-A-PORTER Wish List this season, says KIM PARKER
Jasmin Sparrow
“My grandmother adorned herself in a way that fostered my love of jewelry and appreciation of how the subtlety and boldness of organic forms, in particular, have a timelessness to them,” says jewelry designer Jasmin Sparrow of her constant muse. Indeed, the theme of family is a thread that runs throughout the native New Zealander’s business – after launching her own label in 2014, she handcrafted her sentimental and romantic pieces while her infant son, Archie, napped – and now also includes her young daughter, Lola, in her campaign imagery. Made with recycled sterling silver plated in gold, Sparrow’s sculptural pieces are adorned with semi-precious gemstones and baroque saltwater pearls, which have become a house signature. While she doesn’t play favorites with her pieces, Sparrow happily acknowledges that her ‘Amélie’ earrings (as modeled here) are bestsellers – their classic drop shape, inspired by a Parisian vintage-store find, makes them ultra-easy to wear with anything.
Bleue Burnham
Joyous, technicolor jewels are Bleue Burnham’s speciality. The British jeweler’s exuberant cocktail rings (with playful names like ‘Cottage Garden’ and ‘The Universe is Alive’), earrings and whimsical bejeweled buttons (designed to jazz up any shirt or jacket) are replete with juicy-looking, lab-grown sapphires. Everything is designed and made in Burnham’s London atelier, and his muses include Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson and fashion designer Issey Miyake; he is also hugely inspired by the ornamental gardens of English-country manors, such as Great Dixter in Sussex. Nature is always a priority for the young jeweler, and Burnham follows an impressively ethical production process: all his gold and silver is recycled (apart from the chains on necklaces), his packaging is made from biodegradable materials, and his atelier’s energy is supplied from renewable sources.
Lucy Delius
A former luxury-brand communications specialist, Lucy Delius was inspired by a lifelong love of accessories to swap her PowerPoint presentations for a drawing board and founded her eponymous jewelry label in 2022. Set with diamonds and semi-precious stones, her 14-karat recycled gold pieces are crafted to feel like antique treasures and, as she explains, “sit seamlessly alongside jewels you already own”. Her latest collection, A Siren’s Call, features two different types of weighty, wide-set chains influenced by mariners’ chains from the 1860s. With a seductively smooth texture inspired by beach pebbles, pleasingly off-center links studded with diamonds, and an ‘aged’ rhodium finish, the necklaces and bracelets make perfect everyday pieces – wear them alone for an elevated yet understated look, or layered up and adorned with charms for more of a maximalist statement.
Nikos Koulis
Some might say it was inevitable that Nikos Koulis would establish a fine-jewelry maison. The Athens-based designer hails from a family of jewelers and, after a detour studying literature and philosophy, returned to his roots by qualifying in gemology and glyptology at the esteemed Gemological Institute of America, and then founded his own atelier in Greece. Today, he is renowned for the graphic quality of his precious pieces – the Oui collection, with its art deco-like arrangements of diamonds and enamel, for example, or the white-gold-and-diamond spikes of his dazzling ‘Spectrum’ necklace – and his admirers include HRH Queen Rania of Jordan, Jennifer Lopez and Rihanna. Koulis’s latest collection, ME, is his most abstract yet, exploring the textural interplay between brushed blackened gold and geometrically cut stones.
Jenna Blake
LA-based designer Jenna Grosfeld has long been a voracious collector of vintage jewelry, with a particular affinity for art deco, mid-century and French designers of the 1940s, such as René Boivin. Grosfeld strives to create contemporary interpretations of antique pieces. Her bold, classically inspired silhouettes – think stackable, gem-studded bangles, elegant gold necklaces fringed with blackened diamond drops, and classically chunky-chain necklaces with interchangeable semi-precious charms – deliberately defy current trends. Instead, Jenna Blake jewelry exudes a timeless, storytelling quality, created to encourage “a personal collection that is both a reflection of the wearer and worthy of being passed down from one generation to the next,” she says. And she doesn’t shy away from color, either: a heady mix of chrysoprase, turquoise, emerald and green quartz will seduce those drawn to opulent blue and green hues.