Divorce Rings Are Having a Second Because of Emily Ratajkowski
Final week, Emily Ratajkowski shared on Instagram that she had created a pair of “divorce rings” by reworking the pear- and princess-cut diamonds from her toi et moi engagement ring into two separate rings. Alison Chemla, a New York-based jeweler and artistic director at Alison Lou (who additionally crafted Ms. Ratajkowski’s unique engagement ring), created the brand new items. The publish has since obtained over a million likes.
“Divorce rings are having a second,” mentioned Sasha Nixon, a New York-based jewellery curator and historian. The pattern, one embraced primarily by girls, is about respiration life into one’s wedding ceremony rings following a break up.
Ms. Ratajkowski, whose divorce from the film producer Sebastian Bear-McClard grew to become last in 2023, hopes to shift the unfavourable assumptions about ending a wedding.
“I would love there to be a perspective that permits house for the truth that leaving a relationship is commonly a exceptional and courageous act,” she mentioned. “I actually want to see single mothers — or girls beginning over for the primary time in a terrifying method — discover some type of solace in the concept that they’re not failures for leaving.”
With that in thoughts, Ms. Chemla mentioned she needed to create rings that Ms. Ratajkowski would “really feel pleased with” and that may “make a press release,” describing the method as “collaborative.”
“I want we honored different main life occasions with the identical respect we reserve for marriage,” mentioned Lauren Boc, a North Carolina-based jeweler and founding father of Hera Nice Jewellery. “Leaving a relationship that doesn’t serve you takes braveness, and that’s one thing value commemorating.”
For her summer time 2023 wedding ceremony, Ms. Boc, 35, designed a right-hand ring for the ceremony engraved with “rattling, she’s the one,” a lyric from Lizzo’s track “Soulmate,” on the within. “I preferred having a reminder that I couldn’t be an excellent companion if I didn’t have an excellent relationship with myself,” she mentioned.
After her husband requested for a divorce in October 2023, she determined to make a brand new ring: an 18k yellow gold signet-inspired ring with a four-carat Asscher-cut lab-grown diamond that may “middle my relationship with myself,” Ms. Boc mentioned. She added that requests for post-breakup jewellery have elevated by 300 p.c since she began posting about her personal divorce ring on social media in fall 2023. Customized ring settings begin at $2600.
When Katherine Pokorny’s divorce grew to become last in the summertime of 2021, she had already been in contact with Ali Galgano of Serpentine Jewels about reworking her engagement ring right into a divorce ring. “Repurposing jewellery from previous boyfriends and lovers has not often been public-facing, however we’re seeing a shift wherein girls are reclaiming their energy in all places,” mentioned Ms. Galgano, a jeweler primarily based in Greenwich, Conn. “I noticed a big enhance on this final yr, the place we did triple the variety of divorce ring resets as in 2022. Earlier than 2020, this idea wasn’t even on our purchasers’ radars.”
Ms. Pokorny, a public relations advisor in Aspen, Colo., needed a toi-et-moi fashion, pairing an emerald stone along with her unique emerald-cut diamond. “This challenge gave new which means to the time period retail remedy,” joked Ms. Pokorny, who additionally marked her separation by shopping for a 1991 Mitsubishi Montero, a automobile she’d all the time needed however that her ex-husband had deemed unsafe. “The diamond represents a ten-year interval in my life, and the emerald, my birthstone, is a reminder that I’m able to saving myself.”
Traditionally, divorce rings had been “mournful jewels,” mentioned Rachel Church, an writer and the previous jewellery curator on the Victoria & Albert museum in London. The fashion was meant to ship a social sign, “letting folks know to not inquire about your husband or to indicate that you simply weren’t an single mom,” she added. However trendy iterations lack “any trace of mourning,” mentioned Ms. Church. “There isn’t the identical must establish your self as divorced in that method.”
Stephanie Gottlieb, a New York-based jewellery designer, defined that the which means of a divorce ring right now relies on how the wedding in query ended. “For some, the brand new ring is an act of rise up, whereas, for others, it honors the outdated and new ,” she mentioned, including that designing divorce rings has turn into a constant a part of her enterprise. For one shopper, she created a divorce ring with black diamonds as a result of it “felt just like the antithesis of a bridal piece.” For one more, Ms. Gottlieb used the shopper’s birthstone to represent a “present to self.” In others, Ms. Gottlieb has integrated a shopper’s little one’s birthstone as a “nod to the household life she’s constructed.” A easy ring reset begins at round $3,000.
To make divorce rings much less engagement-like, Judith Hoetker, 50, the pinnacle goldsmith at Reinstein Ross, recommends altering the ring fully: taking part in with the proportions of the ring band, including extra stones to the ring to take the emphasis off the unique diamond, swapping the finger or hand on which the ring is worn (some say a center finger is becoming), incorporating coloration, or selecting a brand new fashion. Ms. Hoetker has seen a 25 p.c enhance in divorce rings between 2023 and 2024. Redesigned wedding ceremony bands begin at $1000, whereas engagement rings begin at $5000.
Madison Snider, 31, the founder and chief govt of Fewer Finer, a jewellery model, restyled a shopper’s traditional solitaire diamond ring into an evil eye-shaped signet ring, with the diamond in its middle, to mark the shopper’s divorce. Contained in the ring, Ms. Snider engraved the phrase ‘badass,’ which she mentioned is how the shopper felt after the transformation.
“Breaking the affiliation from the unique ring is essential,” mentioned Rachel Boston, a London-based jeweler. “Turning it into a very totally different kind of knickknack is a good way to do that. Emily Ratajkowski’s unique toi-et-moi ring was vastly in style, and these new rings will little question be equally influential.”
