Welcome back to my day-by-day breakdown of the 2023 edition of The COUTURE Show, which recently concluded in the Wynn Convention Center.  As my notes from Day 4 were more comprehensive, I have broken out each of the designers with whom I met—Arunashi, Goshwara, Karen Suen Fine Jewellery, Bayco, and Assael—into their own articlea.  Enjoy!  First up: Arunashi!

Sunday, June 04: Day 4 (1pm – 6pm)

While It is unescapably accurate that the role of colored gemstones and minerals, as well as colored alloys, and techniques such as enameling, have become increasingly more prominent in jewelry design as people become more concerned with expressing their own personalities and individuality than in years past; it always amuses me when I learn that another editor has come away from COUTURE declaring that “Color” is a hot trend.   

Besides the fact that colorless diamonds are always going to be in style—certainly, if DeBeers has anything to do with it, and especially with the rise in high-quality lab-grown diamonds—you’d have to have a heckuva lotta nerve (and be ignorant af!) to walk up to anyone affiliated with any the five acclaimed jewelry houses I met with on the last day of COUTURE 2023, look them in the eye and tell them, with a straight face, that color is new, is back, is a trend, or is anything other than one of the pillars upon which they (and in many cases, previous generations of their families) have built their respective companies. 

Anyhow, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let’s get to it!

ARUNASHI:  Back in the early nineteenth century, Arun Bohra’s family was based in Jaipur, where they created intricate jewels for Indian royalty.  Eight generations later, he is continuing the tradition (whether for those to the palace born, or of the red-carpet variety).  Next year will mark the twentieth anniversary of the founding of Arunashi, the Beverly Hills-based design company he formed in 2004 with his wife, Ashita Shah (Arunashi is a portmanteau of their first names), and in the nearly two decades since, Arunashi has produced so many gasp-inducing pieces that frankly, I’ve lost count. [Note: I began the #WearableProzac story, many moons ago, with Arunashi’s diamond and Brazilian black opal ‘dome’ ring .]

After a two-year hiatus from COUTURE, Arunashi was back, and as in years past, presented some of the best window displays of the show, so enticing that it wasn’t surprising to walk by and find a number of people pressing their proverbial noses against the glass.  Whether it’s Arun’s love of large, color-saturated stones—Paraiba tourmalines!  Mexican fire opals!  Burmese sapphires!  Colombian emeralds—for innovative materials such as Corian® and colored titanium alloys; for large, bold, nature-inspired designs; and for asymmetry (as few things in nature are perfectly symmetrical), Arunashi jewels will never fade into the background, literally or figuratively.

As usual, more than a few pieces drew me in, calling out to me (as it were) with their siren songs.  There was the Carbon Fiber Bangle with Marquise Emeralds, featuring seven marquise-cut emeralds (6.62tcw) featuring a deep evergreen hue, set diagonally in blackened 18K gold, and laid parallel to each other across the top of a bangle of carbon fiber, 18K gold, and red enamel; the alluring Mughal Window-Back Emerald Ring, featuring a square-cushion-cut Colombian emerald of 20.53cts in a scalloped setting of opals (2.50cts) in minty-teal titanium set with diamonds (1.45cts), inspired by Mughal architecture (that required the opals being cut from one large stone to ensure that they all featured the same coloring); and the Opal Arches Ring featuring an oval-shaped black Ethiopian Opal of 6.77-carats with intense plays of color, set with 2.27-carats of diamonds in an 18K gold ring with an Indian Lotus design.

Ain’t nobody singin’ the Blues while wearing any of Arunashi’s pieces featuring blue stones.  To wit, there were the smile-inducing Blueberry Earrings, a pair of figural ‘blueberries’ made from 70 steely-blue sapphires (28.96tcw) and diamonds (6.94tcw) in a web of blue-violet titanium, on ‘stems’ of titanium with ‘leaves’ of titanium and tsavorites (0.58tcw); and the Burmese Sapphire Ring, a master class on Old World inlay, featuring a no-heat Burmese sapphire (15.07cts), set in titanium, with eight diamonds (four square-cut diamonds and four baguettes totaling 4.38cts), as well as eight pieces of black opal with blue fire (all cut from the same large piece of opal, to ensure consistency) and eight pieces of tanzanite (11.05tcw).

Arunashi’s signature flexible rings are always fun and packed with goods.  This year, I ogled the Tanzanite Triangle Flexible Ring, a figural ‘serpent’ ring with a chubby trilliant-cut tanzanite (2.38cts) framed with 58 sapphires (2.47cts) set in titanium as the serpent’s head, with 634 diamonds (6.49cts) in the twisty titanium tail.  I also revisited the Cobra Ring, a variation on a longtime fave, in two-tone 18K gold set with 5.26cts of diamonds, so intricately articulated that it doesn’t so much wrap around one’s fingers as envelope them.

COUTURE 2023: Day 4 - ARUNASHI
Wynn Las Vegas
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