With imagination and empathy, jewellery designers can give old family jewels a fresh lease of life. Here’s what you need to know about repurposing your pieces.
When Julie Smith found two garnets in her parents’ home in the US, memories came flooding back. These stones were part of the celebratory rings they’d bought for their 10th anniversary. “I remember when they got the rings. They were permanent fixtures on their hands,” she says. “My dad passed away about five years ago, and at some point, my mom had to get hers cut off due to her fingers swelling after an injury.”
Determined to honour their legacy, she brought the stones back to Singapore and looked for a jeweller who was willing to polish and reset them. “Many jewellers avoid this work because they don’t want to be liable for the piece or prefer to sell their own stones along with the design,” says Julie, as she struggled to find a professional for the job. Finally, she was referred to Kanch Porta, jeweller and founder of her eponymous jewellery brand. “Kanch is one of the few jewellers I could find in Singapore willing to work with my own stones,” she says.
She’s not wrong. Repurposing and redesigning jewellery is not an easy endeavour, and few jewellers offer this service.
For one, there are many misunderstandings about the repurposing process. “One of the biggest misconceptions is that recycling is cheap,” says Simone Ng, founder and creative director of Simone Jewels. “[People believe that] it will save them money because it’s cheaper than buying a new piece.”
“When people think about recycling, they focus on the value they’re bringing in, and the quantity of the [metal and stones]. But they forget we need to design and create the piece as well.”
The first step is to ascertain the authenticity of the gemstones, especially for older pieces without a certificate. It’s not uncommon to have cherished family gemstones turn out to be glass-filled or fake.
Ng says, “It’s quite sad because the family would have paid a lot of money for it, and taken great care to make sure that the piece was passed down from generation to generation.” Adds Porta, “When people bring me [old jewels] and don’t know what it is, I sometimes advise them not to do anything because if you unset it and find it’s not real, then you lose the sentimental value of the piece.”
Another concern is the gold itself. Whether it’s 6K, 14K or 18K, the gold needs to be melted and purified, which is a costly process. Heirlooms can also hide an unpleasant surprise. There have been instances where the gold is revealed to be plated rendering the whole process pointless.
Gold loss is also possible when a stone is extracted from the prongs as the metal needs to be filed. Artisans usually work with their hands in a box to collect the filings, but recycling this powder is not always possible.
Porta addresses this by testing and weighing the gold, offering clients the equivalent value for their new piece. She herself recycles metals by annually melting down those she used in her older jewellery designs.
Other metals also pose challenges. “We can recover silver and platinum,” says Ng, “But at the moment, there isn’t a stable market price for metals like aluminium and titanium. So, we don’t repurpose them because it’s hard to justify the cost to the customer.”
The demand for repurposed jewellery shot up during the pandemic, Porta believes. “People realised the value of life and just wanted to enjoy what they’re wearing.”
She adds, “Some individuals want to upgrade a jewel they might have received when they were 16 years old, and now that they’re older and have a little more money, they want to add something to it.”
Ng concurs, adding, “They could have collected different kinds of jewellery when they first started working. And at a certain stage, maybe in their 30s, 40s or 50s, they realise they have too many small pieces and prefer to consolidate them to create one nice piece they can wear often.”
And then, you have the heirloom pieces that are often imbued with fond memories. Porta, for example, received some jewels when her mother passed away eight years ago. She paired two diamonds that were special to her with a Paraiba tourmaline in a new ring design.
It’s important to find a jeweller that understands the significance of the piece. Some of the jewellery are outdated or impractical, but remain in the vault for sentimental reasons. But the right artisan will find a way to retain the sentiment within the design. “It can be as simple as a quote inside [the band of a ring],” says Kanch.
When one of Ng’s clients wanted to repurpose four jade Peranakan hairpins and brooches inherited from her grandmother, Ng advised her to preserve the essence of the originals. “I explained that these antique designs were special, and a reminder of her grandmother,” Ng recalls. “So, instead of breaking everything down, we clustered them into a single brooch.”
Life events can also inspire transformation: Celebrities like Emily Ratajkowski and Katy Perry have popularised divorce rings, a redesigned version of their engagement bands.
Repurposing jewellery also aligns with the larger sustainability movement, as it’s less harmful to melt down existing gold than to extract the metal from the earth.
Ng adds that the process is environmentally friendly on the one hand because gold or gemstones that have already been mined are used; on the other, the recycling machinery does emit carbon.
HR practitioner Emily Yap, who recently had a ring and bracelet repurposed by Porta, shares her experience: “My mother-in- law gave them to me 15 years ago. They were generous gifts, but not my style. I felt bad because they were unused. Repurposing felt more sustainable, instead of buying new stones.”
Ultimately, this movement aligns with the growing popularity of circularity. Resale platforms like Vestiaire Collective and The RealReal offer platforms to recycle clothes and accessories, but jewellery has been slower to catch up. Repurposing offers a way to participate in this movement and give a new lease of life to jewels that are rarely worn.
This article was first published in Prestige Singapore
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