Coming in under the wire, friends β but I want to talk about the Chasing Ring before another season of stack-photos goes by. This is a piece I drew on a napkin one autumn, and now it's been with us long enough that I've watched a customer's daughter try one on and remember her mother wearing it. That'll humble you in a hurry.
What Chasing Actually Is
"Chasing," in metalwork, has nothing to do with running. It's the technique of working a design into the front surface of a metal sheet using small punches and a tiny hammer, while supporting the back with pitch β basically a sticky tar. The smith strikes the punch, the metal moves, and what emerges is a low relief that no machine can quite imitate. The cousin technique, repoussΓ©, works the design from the back; chasing finishes it from the front. Together they're how the Greeks made armor, how medieval reliquaries got their swirling vines, and how Tiffany & Co. made the silverware your grandmother served Thanksgiving on.
So when I named this ring "Chasing," it was a little wink β the band has the soft, hand-touched quality of a chased surface, even though the production reality is more modest. A polished 14K rose-gold band, contoured by hand, finished by eye. The soul of the technique without the pitch on the studio floor.
Why Rose Gold, and Why 14K
Rose gold is gold alloyed with copper. The more copper, the pinker (and the firmer) the metal. 14K rose is 58.3% gold and the remainder is largely copper with a little silver to keep the warmth from going too apricot. It is, structurally, my favorite metal for an everyday ring β harder than 18K yellow, more forgiving on the skin than nickel-heavy white gold, and possessed of a color that flatters every undertone I've ever worked with. I've put rose gold next to deep brown skin, freckled Irish skin, and pale Swedish wrists, and it behaves like a good friend in every room.
The polished finish on this version is doing something specific: it picks up reflections of whatever is around it. So the ring shifts color all day. Morning coffee on a wood table β you'll see honey. Afternoon at the laptop β cool pink. Sunset on a porch β slightly orange and slightly impossible.
Katura's Approach
I draw bands the way I sketch β by feel. The Chasing Ring is not perfectly round in cross-section; it's slightly egg-shaped on the inside, which is the trick I learned from a goldsmith in Florence twenty years ago for making a ring sit better on a finger that swells. Most factory rings are stamped round. This one is sculpted. You won't see it. You will feel it after about an hour.
How to Stack It
Here is the most-asked question I get about this band: what do I wear it with?
The honest answer: nearly anything, but here are the three combinations I see most often on the women who buy it.
- The "I have an engagement ring and I want it to feel new again." Slip the Chasing Ring on the same hand, on a different finger β the right-hand index, usually. The polished rose echoes the warmth in any diamond's fire and softens a colder white-gold engagement setting.
- The "I'm building a stack from scratch." Start here. Add a yellow-gold Chasing Ring on the next finger over (yes, we make this in yellow and white, too β a whole family). Then a thin diamond eternity. Three rings. Done. Chic for a decade.
- The "I just want one ring." God bless you. This is the one. Wear it on the right ring finger, or the middle, and never think about jewelry again.
Care, Briefly
Polished gold scratches. This is not a flaw β this is gold being gold. After about a year of daily wear you will start to see fine, hairline scratches that catch the light. Most owners come to love them; they're the wear-marks of a life. If you want the original mirror polish back, that's a 15-minute repolish at the bench. We do it for free for the first five years.
Soap and water. Soft toothbrush. The same protocol for everything in your fine jewelry box. I will die on this hill: nobody needs an ultrasonic cleaner at home.
One More Thing
Twenty-five years in, I have learned that the rings women keep are not always the rings that turned heads at the engagement party. They are often the small, hard-working bands that survived a pregnancy, three moves, two career pivots, and the children who, eventually, asked to try them on. The Chasing Ring is built to be one of those.
Wear it well, friends. And don't forget to eat something pink today.
β Katura