Thorn Embrace: Stephen Webster Shows His Love for Muzo Emeralds

Rock ‘n’ roll jeweller Stephen Webster MBE has been bending the rules of classic fine jewellery for decades. From his jagged architectural shapes to punk pavé works of art, he injects a welcome dose of edge into the jewellery world. In his latest collection, Thorn Embrace, the award-winning jeweller brings his patented cool to Muzo emeralds, debuting eight one-of-a-kind emerald pieces at Couture in Las Vegas.

This is not the British-born designer’s first foray into emerald jewels. He recently rocked social media spheres when singer Machine Gun Kelly proposed to his now fiancé, actress Megan Fox, with a unique Toi et Moi engagement ring. Designed by Webster himself, the ring features a large pear-shaped diamond and emerald. It is a beautiful representation of balance, with the strong diamond pavé tendrils and solid solitaire pear-shaped diamond supporting the softer emerald stone, as the two centre stones kiss at their points.

It was this celebrity engagement ring that led to Webster’s decision to create an emerald-centric series of pieces. Impassioned by their mesmerizing colour, the designer decided to create eight pieces in total for his Thorn Embrace collection with the vivid green gems being the stars of the show. The provenance of these particular coloured stones can be traced to the other side of the globe – they are all Muzo emeralds. One of the world’s leading producers of exceptional emeralds, the Muzo mine, located in the Boyacá region of Colombia, prides itself on providing complete transparency when it comes to the journey of each of its gemstones, allowing clients to have a 360-degree view of their gem’s story, from mine to Maison.

There is a reason why emeralds carry so much myth and legend. There is something mesmerising that draws you right into the centre of the stone. Like a charismatic lead singer, the intense green most associated with fine Colombian emerald is impossible to ignore. The display of pieces featuring Muzo Emeralds that we premiered at Couture, became the talk of our entire collection. I have just held an exhibition in Berlin and once again the greens had a hold over the crowd. – Stephen Webster

The Muzo emeralds are most certainly the protagonists in each of these pieces, set amongst accents of colourless and black diamonds. Perhaps equally important in these pieces, however, is the supporting role of pear-shaped diamonds. Although it is an often underestimated and notoriously challenging cut, Webster adores this diamond shape for its versatility. The juxtaposition of their sparkling, brilliant-cut with the ‘sharpness’ of their pointed tips makes them ideal diamond shapes for unisex jewels. And this pointy aesthetic also suits the core motif of the new collection… the thorn. There are hints of mystical, dark romance here, which Webster has been brewing since he first developed his diamond-set thorns more than 25 years ago.

On a trip to Rio, he befriended a local tattoo artist who helped him refine this natural shape into something inspirational. Each pavé diamond thorn embraces an emerald and a diamond. For a final flash of magic, the Thorn Embrace pieces feature a magnetic mechanism embedded in the setting, allowing the stones to not only touch but attract one another.

These pieces have it all – colour, beauty and technology! We cannot wait to see what this maverick jeweller does next.