After years of writing about jewellery, we’ve rather happily become part of the story. Hartenstein Diamonds is our new jewellery brand, creating lab-grown diamond jewellery in Antwerp. I co-founded it with Alex Schönburg, Charlotte and Ben Auerbach, bringing together our experience in fashion, design and the diamond business.
The starting point was personal. We wanted to create the jewellery we kept imagining for our own wardrobes. Pieces with presence, a little boldness and plenty of possibilities. The sort you put on in the morning and find yourself still wearing at dinner.
For those who have followed Notorious over the years, this is a new chapter with a familiar point of view. We have always cared more about style than trends. Now we get to put that conviction into gold.
What Years in Fashion Taught Me About Designing Jewellery
The Alexandra Cuff pairs a domed shape and a softly brushed finish with a vintage-inspired monogram set with pavé diamonds. Clean lines, with a personal flourish.
Working in fashion marketing and later writing about fashion taught me to notice what people respond to, sometimes before they can quite explain it themselves. A proportion, a colour combination, the way one accessory changes an otherwise ordinary outfit.
My own fashion education is probably best expressed through my accessories. Necklaces, rings, bracelets and the various things I add before leaving the house have become my signature. The clothes may change. Certain pieces of jewellery seem to have permanent residency.
My sisters-in-law, who are jewellers, first introduced me to the world of jewellery design, gold and gemstones some thirty years ago. What began as curiosity gradually became a more serious interest. I studied designs, created pieces for myself and taught myself about the jewellery business.
There was no grand plan to launch a brand at the beginning. But after years of looking, learning and making, the idea started to feel less far-fetched.
Then I met the coolest couple in Antwerp.
How Hartenstein Diamonds Began in Antwerp’s Diamond District
Our brand has four faces. Ben and Charlotte lead the atelier and bring their expertise in diamonds and gemstones. Alex and I oversee design and marketing.
Charlotte and Ben Auerbach have worked with diamonds and precious stones for more than twenty years. Their office and atelier are in Antwerp’s Diamond District, where the diamond trade is part of everyday working life.
For someone who had spent years approaching jewellery through fashion, meeting them brought another dimension to the conversation. There were the stones themselves, of course. But also the practical knowledge needed to turn an idea into a piece that sits properly, feels right and can actually be made.
Charlotte and Ben brought their gemmological and atelier expertise. Alex and I brought our experience in marketing, fashion and design, along with some fairly definite ideas about what we wanted to wear.
Hartenstein Diamonds took shape almost before we realised we were founding a company. A surprisingly natural delivery.
H-Studio: A Diamond Wardrobe, Starting with the Bezel Setting
Ida Round Diamond Solitaire Ring
Our first collection, H-Studio, is our interpretation of a diamond wardrobe: jewellery designed to be worn, combined and made personal, from daytime through to evening.
We like bold shapes, but we also want versatility. Pieces you can stack, elements you can change, jewellery that leaves room for the person wearing it.
Our love language is the bezel setting. This is a setting in which a rim of metal surrounds the diamond and holds it in place. Visually, it gives the stone a defined outline and makes the gold part of the design. There is something warm, protective and satisfyingly substantial about it.
The proportions matter. When designing the Ida Round Solitaire Ring, for example, we wanted the presence of a bezel without making the whole ring feel heavy. A raised cathedral setting allows it to sit alongside another ring, while a small row of diamonds adds brilliance at the base.
Then there is the Alexandra Monogram Cuff, where initials become part of the design itself. It brings together two things I have always liked: the confidence of a substantial cuff and the intimacy of jewellery that belongs unmistakably to someone.
Everything we make, we make because we would wear it. That is a fairly demanding design brief when you have spent years collecting opinions about jewellery.
Why We Chose Lab-Grown Diamonds
The Grazia Pendant comes with a leather cord, so you can wear it as a necklace or attach it to your bag as a charm.
Charlotte and Ben’s expertise includes natural diamonds and precious stones. Choosing lab-grown diamonds for H-Studio was a deliberate creative decision.
Lab-grown diamonds are diamonds grown using technology rather than formed through geological processes. They have essentially the same chemical composition, crystal structure and optical properties as natural diamonds. Their origin is different.
I find the human ingenuity behind that process extraordinary. We have learned to grow a material whose beauty has fascinated us for centuries. To me, that is progress, and it opens up exciting possibilities for design.
Their generally lower cost compared with natural diamonds of comparable characteristics also gives us more freedom to explore scale and composition. We can think about how a diamond works within a piece, how several stones relate to each other and how that piece fits into a wardrobe.
There is another reason we find lab-grown diamonds interesting: they invite us to question what we have been taught to pay for. For much of the twentieth century, De Beers managed the supply of natural diamonds, stockpiling stones to support prices. Nature created the diamonds. The industry had considerable influence over how many reached the market.
Lab-grown diamonds give us more room to decide what we value in a piece of jewellery: the stone, certainly, but also the design, the craftsmanship and the pleasure of wearing it. I have spent too many years working in marketing to confuse a compelling story with the whole explanation of a price.
We want people to choose our jewellery because they love its shape, its proportions and the way it feels on them. The diamond’s origin should be clear; the attraction should be personal.
What Comes Next: Antwerp Origin and Vienna Heritage
Ida Two-Diamond Cuff, Ida Bezel Eternity Band and Victoria Confetti Necklace
H-Studio is the beginning. Two further collections are taking shape, each exploring another part of our jewellery vocabulary.
Antwerp Origin will explore diamond and precious-stone classics, drawing on Charlotte and Ben’s experience with the stones at the heart of the designs.
Vienna Heritage will turn towards a more dressed-up world: grand rooms, balls, weddings and the occasional invitation that makes you wish you owned something rather magnificent. A little of the Vienna we know, with room for a thousand and one nights.
For now, we are introducing H-Studio and discovering the particular pleasure of seeing something move from a sketch into a piece of jewellery.
After years of choosing which jewellery to write about, I now have another decision to make: which piece to wear first.
Hoveniersstraat 19
2018 Antwerpen
Belgien