The bracelet closed in a ring on a grey background, with the lobster clasp open at the top

Collection Creazioni in Argento·Bracciale·Interwoven design

Semi-rigid oxidized silver bracelet with eight cubic zirconia

Eight cubic zirconia inside a silver weave cast by the lost-wax method.

€405,00 BL34B1ma

Drawn and built by hand at the bench, in Tosi.

It is not a chain and it is not a rigid circle: it is made of silver plates joined by flat hinges, and every plate is a weave of cast ribbons that ride over one another and leave irregular voids, with no two voids repeating alike. The ground of the weave is oxidized almost to black, the ribbons that sit on top are re-polished, and the design reads by contrast before it reads by relief. Along its length eight pale stones each sit inside an eyelet of the ribbon, held by four claws. At the two ends the silver closes on a lobster clasp.

Twenty-six grams and forty of silver at nine hundred and twenty-five thousandths, for eighteen centimeters of length and one of width. «Semi-rigid» means that the plates do not bend and the hinges do: the bracelet fastens with the lobster clasp, and once closed it keeps the curve of the wrist instead of falling like a chain. The stones are eight cubic zirconia, zirconium oxide grown in a laboratory: here it is the company that declares it, writing «Cubic zirconia» and not the generic «zirconi», which in Italian also covers the natural mineral. The carat weight is not declared, and we do not add it.

The material

Weights and carats as the workshop declares them.

26,40 gramsOxidized silver 925‰
Metals
Oxidized silver 925‰
Style
Interwoven design
Finish
Oxidized in the recesses, polished on the raised work
Dimensions
Total length 18 cm · width 1 cm
Technique
Lost-wax cast and finished by hand: the silver oxidized and then re-polished on the relief, the eight stones set one at a time.

The stones

Cubic zirconia

Eight stones spread along the bracelet, one for each eyelet of the weave

Cut
Brilliant
Note
Synthetic stone, declared by the company as «Cubic zirconia»; the carat weight has not been declared
The bracelet resting on driftwood, shot at an angle along the weave
The bracelet standing against the wood: the rigid plates hold the curve on their own
The end with the lobster clasp, resting on the wood
The bracelet laid out on a white stone, view from above
The open ring resting on the stone, with the openings of the weave against the light
Close-up: two stones on four prongs and the flat hinge between two plates
The bracelet laid out on a grey background, with the lobster clasp at the bottom
The whole length laid out: the eighteen centimetres and the eight stones in a row
The bracelet on the wrist, view from above
The bracelet fastened on the wrist, with the lobster clasp in view

How it is made

The words of the trade, one by one, explained to those who do not know them.

Lost-wax casting
The model is built in wax, coated in refractory plaster and then heated until the wax runs out: what is left is a void of the exact shape, and into that void the molten silver is poured. To get the piece out the mold has to be broken, so every casting consumes both the wax and the mold, and the model you started from no longer exists. It is the way to obtain what the saw and the file would not — ribbons riding over one another, undercuts, voids closed on every side — but if the metal does not reach the end of a thin branch the piece comes out incomplete, and it cannot be mended: it is melted down and started again from the wax.
Oxidizing
The silver is darkened deliberately, and then re-polished only where the light has to come back. The black stays in the voids and the recesses, the pale on the raised work: it is a design made by subtraction, and whoever does it decides where to stop the cloth.
Cubic zirconia
Cubic zirconia is zirconium oxide grown in a laboratory since the nineteen-seventies: colorless, hard, made to resemble diamond. It is not zircon, which is a natural mineral taken from the rock, and it is not a diamond. In Italian the trade calls both stones «zirconi», and that word on its own never says which one it is; here there is no ambiguity, because it is the company itself that writes «Cubic zirconia», that is, declares the synthetic stone. That is why the record carries that name and not another: where the fact is declared it is reported, and where it is missing it is not invented.
Brilliant cut
Fifty-seven facets calculated so that light entering from above comes back out the same side. It is the cut that makes a diamond sparkle, and the reason a badly cut diamond stays dull.

I don't look at what others are doing: I would rather create in my own style. That is what makes our jewelry recognizable.

Fabio Gori — Anna Gioielli, Tosi

Made for you

Every piece leaves the bench made to order: sizes and details are agreed before the work begins.

The goldsmith's workshop is also the place where made-to-measure jewellery is created and family pieces are restored: if you have an idea, or something you want brought back to how it was, that is where it starts.

Ask for a made-to-measure piece
Made by
Anna Gioielli

A goldsmith's workshop in Tosi, on the slopes of the Pratomagno: Anna opened it in 1988, her sons Fabio and Francesco carry it on. Piercing, repoussé, chasing and burin engraving — the Florentine school, with the workshop in full view of the shop.