The Engagement Ring Cassandra Mamone Almost Turned Away

Cassandra Mamone almost said no to the commission that changed her career.

A friend's boyfriend had asked her to design an engagement ring. She hesitated. Then she drew on every contact she had, found the stones and made it. "The rest is kind of history," she says.

We met the Adelaide jeweller at The Calile Hotel in August, during the Brisbane trunk show we announced earlier, and asked her how it all began.

It began with beads. At 14 or 15, Mamone was stringing jewellery for family and friends as a hobby. She went on to study a three-year Bachelor of Visual Arts and Applied Design, majoring in jewellery making.

Her first job was at a fine jewellery manufacturer in Adelaide, where she was quickly promoted to quality control. That meant telling men in their sixties, who did not like being told what to do, that they had missed a spot while polishing. Her skin, she says, got very thick.

Design work was another matter. In the late 2000s, Adelaide offered almost none, so she built her own bench in her parents' garage. She pitched her pieces to small boutiques. Her brother gave her simple advice: take it one step at a time, and start with a website.

Instagram had just taken off, and she began posting photos of her pieces. A few videos of diamond rings went viral, and she still has no idea why. The followers arrived, the commissions followed, and she left quality control. She still sees her old colleagues.

Her first fine jewellery collection landed in 2013. It paired champagne diamonds with rose gold, at a time when everyone was wearing white gold. "I think that was the point where people said, this girl's doing something different," she says.

Other signatures followed. Early on, many of her designs carried a millgrain edge, a small beaded detail that people learned to recognise. Inside every piece, she sets a tiny ruby, her birthstone. "It's the signature little thing we put on the inside," she says.

She works only in natural diamonds, and has never dabbled in lab-grown stones. The palette has warmed over the years, although clients can still go colourless if they prefer.

Her favourite shape is the marquise. Her own engagement ring is one, and she says she wore the shape before Selena Gomez made it famous. "I like to say it was me, but really it was Selena Gomez."

The Eterna ring, set with a marquise diamond.

Beyond diamonds, she loves peridot, alexandrite and tourmaline. And ruby, naturally.

A ruby halo ring, stacked with diamond rings.

Most of the work is engagement rings and wedding bands, with a steady stream of remodels. A remodel starts with a family piece. Mamone studies it, works out what to salvage and asks what matters most. Then she designs something the owner will love to wear and one day hand down.

A remodel by Cassandra Mamone Fine Jewellery.

It is emotional work. "I have clients cry when they see the pieces that were once their grandmother's," she says.

Engagement rings carry their own emotion, mostly nerves. The men who walk into the atelier have usually been sent by a girlfriend who has dropped hints, or by a friend who has already been. Mamone's team tries to take the pressure off. "We deal with this every day," she says. "If we notice they're nervous, we'll do more of the talking for them."

Then comes the awkward part, working out what metal she likes and which gold is her favourite.

One client arrived with a picture he had found online. Mamone didn't love it, so she asked whether his girlfriend had seen it. She hadn't. Mamone kept a few elements, made the design more classic and drew her own. "Not to mention that I wasn't going to copy someone else's work," she says. He was thrilled with the result.

A rose gold engagement ring by Cassandra Mamone Fine Jewellery.

Behind the label is a small team and a workshop. Mamone calls the women in her Adelaide atelier great, and says a good team lets the brand move quickly enough to pull off a trunk show.

Her marketing is almost entirely organic. She has tried ads, and they weren't for her. Instead her team posts on social media and writes to a database of clients, with styling tips and news on what's new rather than a hard sell.

Trunk shows are a growing part of that. She plans at least a few a year, with more in other states as demand grows. She has already taken the format overseas, running a trunk show in London and a Christmas pop-up in Beaver Creek, Colorado. She has also consulted with overseas clients, then made and shipped their pieces.

Asked what she wants the brand to stand for, she doesn't hesitate. Cassandra Mamone is client-focused, she says, about finding what is sentimental in a piece and bringing it to life through handmade work and natural stones.

"I want Cassandra Mamone pieces to last lifetimes," she says. "Not just a lifetime, but lifetimes."

Cassandra Mamone works by appointment from her atelier in North Adelaide. Details at cassandramamone.com.