The Case for Less Metal

Why our settings keep getting thinner, and where that stops.

Every gram of gold you remove from a setting is a gram of light you give back to the stone. It is also a gram of structure you lose. The whole discipline sits between those two sentences.

A 1.6mm band is our floor. Below that, the ring deforms in a pocket. Above 2.2mm, the stone begins to look mounted rather than held.

Restraint is not minimalism for its own sake. It is arithmetic, performed slowly.