Bespoke High Jewellery in Geneva

Geneva is where the trade goes to be certain. Twice a year the sale rooms bring out the coloured stones that have been held back for them, and for a fortnight the city is the place where the market decides what a stone is worth. The House goes for the other reason: it is also the place where the market decides what a stone is.

The city that taught the trade to ask for origin

Switzerland's gemmological laboratories are the reason a modern coloured stone arrives with an opinion attached to it — not only a species and a weight, but a judgement on where it grew and whether it has been treated. An unheated Burmese ruby and a heated one of identical appearance are separated by a document, and that document is very often Swiss.

This has made buyers in Geneva unusually literate about paperwork, and unusually exposed to it. A report is an opinion, issued on a date, by a named laboratory, about the stone in front of it — no more and no less. The House wrote a plain guide to reading one for exactly this reason: the difference between what a report says and what a seller says it says is where most money is lost.

What a private viewing in Geneva is

An appointment, a table, and an honest account of the stone — including the reasons another house might have passed on it. The House receives in French and in English. If a stone interests you, the conversation that follows is about what it could become, not about what is in stock, because nothing is in stock.

Bought at the sales, and still undecided

A stone acquired at auction arrives with a catalogue entry and no future. SINGULLUM Private takes it from there: it is studied, the design is drawn to answer it, and the Creation is made once. Whether the stone came from a sale room, a family, or a dealer changes nothing about what the House undertakes afterwards.

One Creation, and no second edition

The design is retired when the Creation is finished. It is not adapted for a second stone, not offered in another metal, and not resized for another client. In a market that has grown used to editions of eight and editions of twenty, this is the simplest thing the House has to say about itself: there is one.

The House receives by private appointment only. No showroom address is published in Geneva, because none is held.