Say ‘I doodle’ with a curly wurly engagement ring

There’s a new wave in diamond rings: bands that twist, turn and curl around a centre stone. The look injects designs with movement and youthful vitality, throwing shapes across the hand and fingers. Now trending in the engagement-ring sector, bands that meander are dismantling formality and challenging tradition through creativity and craftsmanship.

The concept is particularly suited to highlighting ingenuity in stone-setting. In his studio in Tilburg in the Netherlands, goldsmith Leen Heyne twists each gold strip for his rings by hand with strength and intuition. He allows the metal to dictate the design, and diamonds are set as the metal is shaped, never afterwards, and never with claws. Heyne describes the process in near-mystical terms, with stone and metal “caught in a metallurgic dance of tension” that “emphasises the flow and movement of something that comes from nature”.

They are mischievous – as if a doodle has been brought to life in gold

Fluidity has always been a keynote of Copenhagen-based designer-jeweller Sophie Bille Brahe’s designs. Inspired by her ancestor, the 16th-century astronomer Tycho Brahe, she connects diamonds to stars, and pearls to the moon. “I try to capture that feeling of gazing at the horizon, or the image of the perfect wave,” she says. Bille Brahe’s signature graduated scrolling trail of diamonds wraps around a centre stone in her popular Celestine and Escargot rings, while the Ensemble ring spells out a chosen initial. Meanwhile, her latest engagement ring design, Amoureux, contrasts a single diamond of different cuts and shapes with a lyrical three-sided pavé-set diamond band. “Today’s engagement ring has to fit into your life and lifestyle, more than showing that you belong to somebody.”

Heritage maisons and diamond houses are also incorporating free-flowing waves and curves in ring designs. Emphasising the continuous flow of line, life and love, they are well-suited to nuptials – where an engagement ring often needs to accommodate a wedding ring – because they lend themselves to stacking: see Boodles’s Over The Moon ring, where diamonds nestle in waves formed by white enamel crescent moons.

Then there is Annoushka’s range of Whoopsie Daisy rings: sculptural wavy bands that make stacking easy. “Rings are one of the few pieces of jewellery a woman can admire on herself at all times, so it was important to design something she could truly interact with,” says founder Annoushka Ducas. “They’re mischievous, as if a doodle has been brought to life in gold.” 

Photographer’s assistant, Pietro Lazzaris. Production by KO Collective