Design concepts with a cushion-cut red spinel

Red spinel is one of jewellery’s lesser-known treasures. I'm a huuuuge fan, and whilst Spinel occurs in many stunning colours (as you know from my ready-to-wear collection and my bespoke jewellery projects), I love a gem challenge, and finding that elusive natural red spinel with A: beautiful vivid colouring, B: lovely clarity, C: in a shape I like, and D: that recognisable 'spinel captivating sparkle' has been on my radar for yonks!

Although Red Spinel is the most expensive of the spinel colours, it still beats ruby on price, so at nearly 2 carats, this is a wonderful option at a fraction of the cost of a ruby at the same size.

Anyway, I haven't had this Burmese Spinel for long, but it has been playing on my mind, as I wanted to play with some designs and see what suited it. It’s a beautiful untreated, natural, cushion-cut 1.88ct certified gemstone.

As much as it would suit a geometric / art deco setting (in white gold) or an elegant Victorian style setting with baguette side diamonds, much like The Elizabeth Ring or The Olive Ring in my collection. I had a feeling that I wanted to explore a more organic style. I'm currently designing a diamond and white gold wedding band, and if the commission goes ahead, it has a wonderful unique, asymmetric style that will be so gorgeous against her engraved engagement ring (more on this later, when he's proposed, at the moment its a secret!)

Anyway, I wanted to bring a bit of that organic magic into a concept for this spinel.

For some reason a secret magical garden kept popping into my head and I thought how cool would this gem look surrounded by leaves. Maybe gemstone leaves made of marquis-cut peridot, tsavorite garnets, green sapphires and green tourmalines - a range of greens. I then thought that some diamonds, not pure white diamonds, but softly sparkling champagne diamonds would add to the twinkly depth.

In this leafy design, it feels like the spinel looks like a secret to be discovered, which it kinda is, as an under-the-radar gemstone!

But you can see from my concepts below that the red spinel would fit beautifully with any metal colour.

If you’re interested in working with me on a design using this gemstone, please let me know!