Suzanne Kalan Jewelry

Suzanne Kalan Jewelry

Suzanne Kalan launched her eponymous jewelry line in Los Angeles in 1988, after years spent working in her father's downtown jewelry store and financing her start with a diamond bracelet given to her as a wedding gift. She is best known for the Fireworks setting, scattering baguette-cut diamonds and colored gemstones across a piece in a seemingly random pattern she developed after noticing loose baguettes spread across her desk.

Collage of rings, earrings and layered necklaces worn up close, in the spirit of Suzanne Kalan

Jewelry

The baguette cut had fallen out of favor after the 2008 downturn, oddly shaped and hard for other jewelers to set, before Kalan built an entire signature style around scattering them like light. That Fireworks logic still runs through the pieces here, favoring irregular clusters of stone over symmetrical, expected settings. It is jewelry that turned an industry leftover into a house signature.

Scattered stones, seen up close

Kalan's real contribution to jewelry design was rehabilitating a cut everyone else had given up on, and pieces built on that logic still look distinct against a market full of straightforward pave and prong settings. The scattered arrangements reward looking closely rather than glancing past. The tradeoff is that a signature this recognizable can start to feel repetitive across a full range, since the Fireworks effect is doing a lot of the work in every piece. I would pair Suzanne Kalan's scattered settings with rings and necklaces that invite a closer look when I want to keep exploring fine jewelry.

 

If you want to keep going, David Yurman Jewelry and ILA Dresses and Jewelry pair well with this edit.