Gary Dutton & Whiteflash pendant / enhancer

[Rosa]

Hi everyone,

I had taken a long hiatus from Pricescope due to just not having the time to troll through the posts, always a favorite pastime. However, it would be remiss of me not to post a big thanks to everyone who made suggestions last summer about finding a red spinel and creating a custom pendant.

I worked with Gary Dutton who was just fantastic. We found a spinel in my budget from Palagems. Before finding the perfect one for my project, Gary patiently fielded a lot of requests on color variations, inclusions, shapes, and pretty much everything since I was a complete novice! The photos he sent with GIA color paddles next to the stones really helped - it must have been a lot of work for him but since we were working together over email (he is in Arizona; I''m in NYC) it was incredibly helpful.

The final stone was an oval - here is the description I saved from the Palagems site - I am attempting to attach their photo as well:

Stock No.: 16657
Gem Type: Spinel
Variety: Red
Weight: 1.68 carats
Number of Pieces: 1
Cut/Shape: Oval
Measurements: 7.5 x 6.4 x 4.6 mm
Origin: Burma
Enhancements: None
Description: Fiery red.

After receiving the stone, I got a quote from Whiteflash that I could live with and worked initially with Lesley (before she left Whiteflash) and later with Vera Wages. They were both a pleasure. The designer Joe Druhot was great - very receptive to ideas and really wonderful at translating those into reality.

I can''t thank everyone here on Pricescope enough, as I would never have undertaken this project if this forum hadn''t shown me the way!

I will post photos of the completed pendant in a second - I hope it inspires other newbies to follow through on a project that may only be in their imaginations right now!

Rosa

 

[Rosa]

Here are few views - I love it and am so pleased with how it turned out.

 

[Rosa]

Here is a neck shot - I don''t have anything but MS Paint on my computer, so forgive me if the attachment comes out a bit strange.

 

[MakingTheGrade]

Oh wow, that is just gorgeous! Definitely an heirloom piece!

 

[Rosa]

Date: 6/15/2009 5:25:23 PM
Author: MakingTheGrade
Oh wow, that is just gorgeous! Definitely an heirloom piece!

Thank you so much, MakingTheGrade! Heirloom quality and a kind of romantic, vintage-look is exactly what I was hoping for!

 

[Linda W]

Rosa!!!!!! OMG, that is one gorgeous pendant.

Definitely an heirloom quality piece, to one day hand down. I LOVE it. It is gorgeous. WF did an outstanding job. I love it with your pearl necklace.

It is drop dead gorgeous.

 

[cellentani]

I love it - It''s so rich looking!

 

[Babyblue033]

Wow. I''ve mostly seen WF pieces that are very modern and sleek and had no idea they can pull off such great vintage looking piece too! It looks amazing!

 

[D&T]

that is one luxurious pendant, and the color of that gem is just so fiery! Gorgeous!

 

[T L]

Beautiful and elegant piece. It looks to have some Etruscan influence. Enjoy!!

 

[Cind11]

Wowwww! That is fabulous! Congratulations!

 

[akmiss]

It is absolutely breathtaking! I would love more pictures

 

[Rosa]

Thanks everyone for all the nice compliments! I have enjoyed drooling over everyone else''s stuff, and that really is what pushed me to do this project. If any of you remember from my questions last summer, this was a bit of a sentimental project, b/c my father was funding it in honor of my mother, who is deceased.

So, seeing all of your positive feedback on the final result makes me really happy!

 

[Rosa]

Date: 6/15/2009 5:44:37 PM
Author: Babyblue033
Wow. I''ve mostly seen WF pieces that are very modern and sleek and had no idea they can pull off such great vintage looking piece too! It looks amazing!

Babyblue, that was a concern for me, initially. I also noticed that it seemed WF did a lot of modern design, and wondered if it would be a pain to get something done in a vintage style. BUT, it was not trouble at all. I think with any project there will be some tweaks and back-and-forths, and we certainly did that, but overall, I can say that it was a fairly smooth process and you shouldn''t hesitate to call WF to get a quote on a vintage reproduction.

 

[Fly Girl]

Beautiful piece, Rosa! Thank you so much for coming back with pictures to share! I just love seeing how these projects turn out.

 

[chrono]

Beautiful, just too beautiful for words.

From the wonderful rich red spinel colour to the very unique and elegant setting. A worthy heirloom piece anyone would be proud to wear.

 

[starshine]

Absolutely REGAL!! Very nice!

 

[LaurenThePartier]

That is just amazing - so gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Arcadian]

Oh wow. that is absolutely stunning! Gary is really fantastic to work with (my sapphire came from him) That pendant is truly an heirloom piece.

-A

 

[mochi]

It''s absolutely gorgeous!!

 

[bling addict]

that''s a really amazing piece

 

[Dandi]

How incredibly stunning!!!

Lucky you to own such a magnificent piece, to be enjoyed for many years to come I am sure!! Great job!!

 

[ma re]

Truly amazing!

 

[Rosa]

Date: 6/15/2009 7:07:22 PM
Author: Fly Girl
Beautiful piece, Rosa! Thank you so much for coming back with pictures to share! I just love seeing how these projects turn out.

Thanks Fly Girl, I also love seeing how other''s projects turn out. In fact, the quest for a red spinel was partly inspired by RaddyGast - I lurked (didn''t set up a username until last year) on pscope reading his posts and looking at the photos of his spinel, and he NEVER published the finished photos. It was a big disappointment to me not to see how it turned out because I actually felt emotionally invested in his search. (hope that doesn''t make me sound pathetic!) I even referenced Raddygast''s spinel when I first wrote to Gary Dutton!

 

[Rosa]

Date: 6/15/2009 9:07:04 PM
Author: Arcadian
Oh wow. that is absolutely stunning! Gary is really fantastic to work with (my sapphire came from him) That pendant is truly an heirloom piece.

-A

Thanks Arcadian - Gary is great! I kept asking for more info on certain stones and he was quick to fill me in.
I will definitely do more custom projects in the future b/c Gary and WF made it pretty easy on me!

 

[Catmom]

WOW, both the stone and the setting are gorgeous and together they are just Va Va Voom!!!

 

[innerkitten]

Wow, what a great enhancer!

 

[Babyblue033]

Date: 6/15/2009 7:01:03 PM
Author: Rosa

Date: 6/15/2009 5:44:37 PM
Author: Babyblue033

Wow. I''ve mostly seen WF pieces that are very modern and sleek and had no idea they can pull off such great vintage looking piece too! It looks amazing!

Babyblue, that was a concern for me, initially. I also noticed that it seemed WF did a lot of modern design, and wondered if it would be a pain to get something done in a vintage style. BUT, it was not trouble at all. I think with any project there will be some tweaks and back-and-forths, and we certainly did that, but overall, I can say that it was a fairly smooth process and you shouldn''t hesitate to call WF to get a quote on a vintage reproduction.

Rosa. If you don''t mind sharing, can you share the setting design process a bit? I''m curious to know how it came to be, sometimes it''s difficult to bring out the idea and inspiration in your head into real life. And since WF is not that well known for antique style pieces I''m more curious to know how the process was with them

 

[princessplease]

So pretty!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Rosa]

Hi Babyblue,

Sure, I''m happy to elaborate on the design process. But first, I have to tell you that your avatar makes me crack up! I have a kitty at home (he is Mr. Frisky today - running all over the house as though possessed) and he likes to take baths, so we see his tongue quite a bit, too.

Well, first of all, whenever I couldn''t sleep, I would troll jewelry sites looking at pendants. Any time I found something I liked some element of, I would right-click and save the jpg to my hard drive in a folder called "pendants."

When I first contacted WF, I think I sent them practically everything in that folder with a note about each one, saying - I like this bail and I like that filigree work and I like that bezel and so forth.

Also, I described each element, for example, here is an excerpt minus photos from an email I sent early on - the photos are on my laptop which is having issues, but if I can ever get it running again I will post the inspiration photos:

1. Material: 18k yellow gold, and diamond melee. I will provide the center stone.

2. Style of bail: should open/close securely and be large enough to fit over pearls that are about 6.5 - 7mm.

3. Presentation of center stone: For the center stone, I am leaning toward a bezel setting.

4. Individual features - Bezel, Bale, Diamonds, Gold-work:

Bezel: Depending on how the piece evolves, a plain bezel might be best, or maybe something like the beaded bezel on the onyx pendant (Photo 1) below, or the geometric bezel on the citrine one beneath that (Photo 2.)

Bale: On the citrine earrings (photos 3 & 4), and several of the other pendants below, the bale has diamonds on it and then a single round bezel set diamond just above the body of the pendant. I like this.

But I also like the triple row of pave diamonds on the amethyst piece (photo 7), but don''t like that you can see the little loops of wire holding the bale to the pendant body.

Gold-work: I don''t know what to call this category, but what I mean by it is that I like a little bit of curve and open-work/pierced look - the best thing is probably for you to look at #8, 9, 12 - that is the overall style I''d like to go for.

Lesley wrote back and said, NARROW IT DOWN!

So then I picked only 3 to narrow down and basically we went from there. I was thinking to set the stone east-west but did NOT specify that b/c I wondered what the designer would come up with. I wanted to leave part of the process to the designer and not overdictate - as you can see I already had done a lot of that!

The first version Joe sent kinda looked a little too much like a cross and I wanted it to be more rounded. I printed the CAD, drew some extra circles on the pic, took a picture of it, and sent it back as an attachment. He said he would play with it, and came up with something much better than what I sent back to him (did I tell you he is great?) That was pretty much it! There was some back and forth over milgrain and little things, but the basic design was done.

Hope this explanation helps! Do you have a vintage-type project in mind?