Category: Journal

A diamond is the hardest natural material there is, and that fact ruins more jewellery than it protects. Owners treat the stone as indestructible and the setting as part of the stone. The stone survives; the setting does not. Here is what actually damages fine jewellery, and what to do about it, drawn from the Gemological Institute of America’s care guidance.

What can hurt a diamond

Diamond sits at 10 on the Mohs scale and, in GIA’s words, only a diamond can scratch a diamond. Two consequences follow. First, a diamond stored loose with other pieces will scratch everything it touches, including your gold. Second, hardness is not toughness: any stone, including a diamond, will break if it is hit hard enough in the right place, and pointed shapes are the most exposed at their corners. A diamond that has worked loose in its setting will also, over time, wear through the prong that holds it.

What can hurt the gold

18K gold is 75 per cent gold and 25 per cent alloy, and it is the alloy that reacts. Chlorine bleach can pit or damage gold alloys, which is why the pool and the cleaning cupboard are the two places fine jewellery should never go. Hairspray, lotion and perfume leave a film that dulls both metal and stone; in a region where fragrance is applied generously, the rule is perfume first, jewellery last. White gold has one more habit: its rhodium plating wears, and the piece is re-plated to bring the white back.

How to clean it

Warm water, mild dish soap and a soft brush, then a rinse in a glass of water rather than under a running tap, so a loosened stone lands in the glass and not the drain. Dry with a lint-free cloth. Avoid powdered abrasive cleansers, and avoid home ultrasonic and steam cleaners, which can loosen stones in their settings; those machines belong with a jeweller who checks the piece before and after.

The six-month rule

GIA’s advice is to have jewellery checked every six months and cleaned frequently. For a piece worn daily, a diamond ring above all, that check is the difference between tightening a prong and replacing a stone. Store each piece separately, in its box or a padded case, never loose in a drawer.

Questions about a Wazna piece go to the atelier in Barsha South: contact us and we will tell you what it needs.

The most valuable piece in a woman’s jewellery box is rarely the most expensive one. It is the one with a letter on it, because a letter is a decision someone made about her. Every other piece could belong to anyone. This one could not.

Why a letter

A letter is bespoke at its smallest scale. There is no consultation and no sketch, and yet the piece is built around one person. It carries an initial, a child’s name, a mother’s, a word that means something only to two people. In the Gulf, where names carry family and lineage as well as identity, the letter is a heavier thing than it looks.

What Wazna makes

The house makes letter pendants in 18K gold set with diamonds, in rose, white or yellow gold, and every letter is available. On the Arabic side of the collection the same idea runs on bracelets: a diamond letter in 18K gold, again in all letters. The letter can stand alone on its chain or sit beside a second charm, as it does on the piece pictured, where a diamond letter shares the chain with a hamsa charm.

Choosing one as a gift

Three questions decide it. First, whose letter: hers, or the name she would want closest to her? A mother often wants a child’s initial more than her own. Second, which gold: rose reads as personal, white lets the diamonds speak, yellow is the classic. If in doubt, match what she already wears every day. Third, script: an Arabic letter and a Latin one carry the same name in two different voices, and the choice says which voice you mean.

If the letter you want is a word, a date or a symbol rather than a single character, that is where the letter pendant ends and the bespoke atelier begins.

Western jewellery was designed for a neckline. The Arab gown does not always have one to offer, and the abaya has none at all. That is the gap Wazna’s Rank collection was built for: it moves the jewellery from the neck to the two places an Arab silhouette actually shows, the shoulder and the waist.

What a Rank piece is

The house describes the collection as inspired by Arab culture and made for women who lead, fusing tradition and modernity. In the hand, a Rank is a run of hinged, angular gold segments that step and fold like the chevrons on an insignia, with the inner faces set in pave diamonds. Worn on the shoulder it reads as a mark of standing; the name is not decorative. The matching Belt takes the same architecture around the waist of a gown or a jalabiya, where a fabric sash would normally sit.

Three tiers, one design

Unusually for a fine jeweller, Wazna offers the collection at three levels of material, so the design is not reserved for one price. The Diamond Rank and Diamond Belt are 18K gold, in rose, white or yellow, set with diamonds. The Gold-Plated Rank and Gold-Plated Belt use zircon stones on plated metal. The Silver Rank and Silver Belt use zircon on silver. A pair of Diamond Earrings in 18K gold, in the same three colours, completes the set. The shape is the same across all three; what changes is what it is made of.

How to wear it

Three rules, all judgment rather than doctrine. One shoulder, not two, unless the occasion is formal enough for symmetry. The Belt on a plain gown; the pattern of the piece is the pattern of the outfit, and a printed fabric fights it. And when a Rank is on the shoulder, keep the neck bare; the whole point is to move the eye, not to crowd it.

A Rank also answers a practical question Emirati women are asked more than most: what jewellery works with an abaya. Very little that hangs from the neck does. Something that sits on the shoulder does.

The collection is in the shop, and a Rank can be commissioned in a different scale or stone through the atelier.

The colour of gold is the first decision in any piece and the one most people make in the last thirty seconds. It deserves the first thirty minutes. The three colours are not three metals; they are one metal with three companions, and the companion changes how the piece looks, wears and ages.

What 18K actually means

Pure gold is 24 carat. 18 carat gold, the standard Wazna works in, is 75 per cent gold and 25 per cent other metals, most often copper or silver. That quarter is not a compromise. Pure gold is too soft for a ring worn daily; the alloy gives it the hardness to hold diamonds in place for decades. It is also where the colour comes from.

Where the colours come from

Yellow gold keeps the natural colour of the metal, with the silver and copper in the alloy balanced so that neither pulls the tone.

Rose gold gets its soft pink from copper. More copper, warmer pink. Rose gold reads as the most personal of the three, and on warm skin tones it reads as an extension of the skin rather than an object on it.

White gold is made by alloying gold with white metals such as palladium or silver, and it is usually plated with rhodium to give a harder surface and a brighter shine. That plating is why a white gold ring looks whiter in the shop than after five years of wear, and why white gold pieces are periodically re-plated. It is not a flaw; it is how the material works, and any honest jeweller will tell you so before you buy.

How to choose

Choose by three questions, in this order. First, what do you already wear every day? A new piece that fights the colour of a watch or a wedding band will be worn less. Second, how visible do you want the diamonds to be? White gold disappears behind white diamonds so the stones do the talking; yellow and rose gold frame them. Third, how much maintenance will you accept? Yellow and rose gold age by softening; white gold ages by asking for a visit.

At Wazna, the Love collection and the letter pendants are made in all three colours, and every bespoke piece is offered in rose, white or yellow. The house’s advice is the same in every case: decide the colour first, then design the piece around it, never the reverse. If you want help deciding, the atelier starts there.

The UAE is one of the easiest places in the world to buy a diamond and one of the easiest places to buy the wrong one. The choice is wide, the prices are competitive, and the vocabulary is designed to sound reassuring. Here is what the words mean, and what to ask before you pay.

The four measures

Every serious jeweller grades diamonds on the four scales set by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), the 4Cs: colour, clarity, cut and carat weight.

Colour. GIA grades colour on a scale from D to Z. D is colourless; Z shows light yellow, brown or grey. The letters were chosen to start at D so that no one could confuse the scale with older systems. Grading is done under controlled light against a set of master stones, which is why a grade from a laboratory means more than a grade from a shop counter.

Clarity. Eleven grades, all judged under 10x magnification: Flawless, Internally Flawless, VVS1 and VVS2, VS1 and VS2, SI1 and SI2, and I1 to I3. In GIA’s language, VS stones have inclusions “observed with effort” and “minor”; SI inclusions are “noticeable”; I-grade inclusions are “obvious” and may affect brilliance and durability. For most pieces worn daily, the difference between VVS and VS is invisible to the eye and visible on the invoice.

Cut. GIA’s cut grade runs from Excellent to Poor, and it is given only to round brilliant diamonds, because they are the only shape with standardised facets. Every other shape is a “fancy” shape and carries no cut grade. Cut is the measure that decides how much light a stone returns, and it is the one most often left out of the conversation.

Carat. A metric carat is 200 milligrams, divided into 100 points. Carat is weight, not size; two stones of the same weight can look different depending on cut and proportion.

The tax

The UAE has charged VAT of 5 per cent since January 2018, and it applies to jewellery. If you are visiting rather than resident, the government’s tourist refund scheme returns most of it: you must be 18 or over, buy from a retailer registered in the scheme, spend at least AED 250 in the transaction, validate the purchase at the airport within 90 days, and claim within one year. The refund is 85 per cent of the VAT paid, after a fee of AED 4.80 per tax-free tag.

Five questions to ask

Which laboratory graded this stone, and can I see the report? Is the cut grade on the report, and if the stone is not a round brilliant, why not? What is the metal, and what carat of gold? Is the price quoted with VAT included? Will the invoice carry the stone’s grades and weight exactly as the report states them?

A jeweller who answers all five without hesitation is worth buying from. At Wazna every diamond piece is made in Dubai in 18K gold, and every commission through the bespoke atelier begins with those five answers rather than ending with them.

Most jewellery houses sell objects. Wazna sells an argument: that strength and elegance are the same quality in a woman, seen from two sides. Every collection the house has produced in Dubai is a variation on that one idea, in diamonds and 18K gold. Here is what each of the four says, and how to read them together.

Strength of Spirit

The largest of the four collections takes its form from a screw. The house describes it as a symbol of vigour and patience: the small, plain object that holds structures together. On the pieces, the screw head sits as a motif on rings, pendants, bangles and earrings, often set in pave diamonds against yellow, white or rose gold. It is the collection most of the house’s pieces belong to, and it carries the house’s stated belief that positivity is what activates the spirit and gives a life purpose.

Majestic Spirit

This is the bridal line: engagement and wedding jewellery built to carry the day. The designs lean on the brilliance of diamonds in classic settings, made to be photographed on one date and worn for decades after it. Where Strength of Spirit is a statement, Majestic Spirit is a promise.

Rank

Rank is the collection that could only have come from the Gulf. It was designed for Arab women who lead, and its name is the word itself: rank, standing, position. The pieces fuse tradition and modernity and are made to be worn where Western jewellery rarely goes: across the shoulders of a gown, or around the waist as a belt. On an abaya or an evening dress the effect is architectural rather than decorative. It is the most Emirati thing the house makes.

Love

The Love collection honours family, motherhood, iconic love stories and dedications to nature. Its designs are deliberately modest, following one family of forms in different styles, and every piece is offered in white, rose or yellow gold, with or without diamonds. It is the collection most often given rather than bought for oneself.

How to read them together

Strength of Spirit is the everyday statement. Majestic Spirit is the vow. Rank is the occasion. Love is the gift. A woman can wear the four across a life without any of them contradicting the others, because they are built on the same premise.

The house also makes pieces outside the four collections, and takes commissions for pieces that exist only once. If the collection language speaks to you but you want it in your own accent, the bespoke atelier is where that conversation starts.