Ocean Whisper Earrings

The earring is mostly shell. Mother of pearl carved into two plates — a lobed form at the ear, a broader shield below — each domed and undulating, so light travels across the surface in a slow shift rather than catching at a single point. Nacre releases light gradually. At this scale, that is what makes the piece glow rather than flash.

At the centre of each plate, a single blue sapphire, oval above and pear below, bezelled in white gold and ringed by small square sapphires in invisible setting — cut to grip one another from beneath, laid edge to edge, stone meeting stone. Invisible setting is demanding on a straight run. Here it is worked as a closed ring, and around a pear, so every stone in the curve takes a different shape from the one before it. The ring follows the outline of the stone it surrounds, which is why the pear at the base reads as one larger pear from across a room.

Pearls stand proud around the outer edge of both plates. Nacre against nacre: the pearls and the plates are one material in two forms, one grown in layers around a nucleus, one lining the shell itself.

The discipline holding it together is Art Deco. The mother of pearl is carved to a defined, symmetrical outline. The sapphire rings are calibrated and closed. In each half, the centre stone, its surround and the carved plate state the same shape three times, one inside the next — a form stacked within itself and graded through three materials. That device is what holds a piece made largely of shell to a hard geometry.

The white here is organic, shell and pearl, and sapphire is the only faceted stone. At 63 by 33 millimetres, in white gold, this is a large earring that works entirely by glow.

Please enquire for certification and viewing.