Their grandmother's necklaces were worn by Frida Kahlo. Her bracelets sat in Peggy Guggenheim's collection. Her coterie included Diego Rivera, Anais Nin, Helena Rubinstein. When Phoebe and Annette Stephens founded Anndra Neen in 2009, they were not starting a jewelry label from scratch. They were picking up a thread their grandmother had laid down in a Mexico City atelier sixty years earlier, and they were determined not to drop it.

Rebecca Manners has been to the volcanic mountain ranges of Java hunting for agatized fossils. She has lived with tribes in the Kayah state of Myanmar. She has drunk gallons of sugary coffee waiting for Master Goldsmiths to trust her enough to begin. She no longer creates large collections. She creates bespoke pieces — each one a living record of the hands and the culture and the place that made it. She calls it the Art of Slow, mindful luxury. It is exactly that: slow, but made to the highest quality. Patience and time is needed.

Belgian-Korean jewellery designer Kim Mee Hye on wearable architecture, hidden mechanisms, the click of a clasp, Antwerp craftsmanship, and jewels for women who don't consider fine jewellery suited only to a particular occasion.

Paula Mendoza was a journalist before she was a goldsmith. One course changed everything: Jewelry as Sculpture, at Washington's Corcoran School of the Arts. A pilgrimage through Peru's ancient filigree workshops did the rest. Today her pieces are worn by Beyonce, Zendaya, and Sarah Jessica Parker, her artisans in Bogota have worked with her for over a decade, and her wedding in 2026 had a dress code of all black, a lineup of five DJs from Burning Man, and a theme called Rave Royale. She is, as Leila says, something special.