The Couture show in Las Vegas is a perfect opportunity to meet designers from all 50 states. In this instance, however, I have my eyes firmly fixed on Illinois – Chicago, to be exact – and its historic Gold Coast District, which is the home of Robert Guild Jewelry Atelier. The business is helmed by Lisa Guild and Robert Galustian, who form a small but mighty design team crafting modern pieces using age-old skills and techniques. This fusion of old and new is part of the DNA of the atelier, as is an obsession with unusually coloured gemstones, sometimes in clashing combinations. Even colours that shouldn’t work together (on paper, at least) seem to do so under their stewardship!
“Emerging from time-honoured techniques and pushing the boundaries of modern design, we are firmly rooted where the highest levels of craftsmanship meet the enduring elements of fashion, nature, and art,” Robert Galustian.
For Lisa Guild, her passion for gemstones started at the age of five when her grandmother gifted her an emerald ring for her birthday. Robert’s interest flourished later while he was working as a craftsman at a jewellery art gallery owned by international artist Eve Alfille. “These early influences combined with our curiosity about gemstones have led our brand to feature coloured gemstones in the majority of our designs,” Lisa explains. Together, their love of colour leans towards lighter and brighter shades, even occasionally acidic hues, that give an effervescent energy to pieces.
“We love finding rare stones like kornerupine, clinohumite, and grandidierite and showcasing them in special one-of-a-kind jewellery designs. Our favourite colour palette is green, like Paraiba, minty green tourmaline and tsavorite; blue with aquamarine, turquoise, and cornflower blue sapphires; purple amethyst and chalcedony; and pink using sapphires, spinels, morganites and rubies with a touch of pink,” says Robert.
During my time in Las Vegas, I simply knew that we had to photograph the Robert Guild Confluence necklace. Not only is it one of Lisa and Robert’s favourite pieces, but it also contains some unusual gemstones, including an 18.97-carat ‘platinum beryl’ (goshenite) and a 1.89-carat clinohumite with a deep orange hue. This is a contemporary choker with hints of a ‘question mark’ style necklace, inspired by glamorous Hollywood celebrities who walk the red carpet in their resplendent jewels. All the gemstones included here are unusually shaped and fancy cut, which adds to the charm.
Lisa explains: “As we played with the layout of the gemstones, we had an idea to create a ‘confluence’ moment where the peridot and platinum beryl were coming together to create something even more spectacular. This takes the form of a gemstone drop featuring five vibrant and very juicy looking gemstones.” The largest of the five is a 4.77-carat morganite, followed by a 2.22-carat aquamarine, the rare clinohumite, a 1.48-carat grossular garnet and a 0.97-carat chrysoberyl. More clever touches are the way this quintet of minerals hangs on a sleek line of graduating, reverse-set diamonds and how the four strands of white gold lead to a “state of the art clasp that not only looks beautiful but functions effortlessly,” according to Lisa.
Another piece that caught my eye is the Comet ring, set with a trio of large gemstones that were expertly fashioned by master cutter Stephen M. Avery. The largest is a 2.54-carat tourmaline, followed by a 2.52-carat yellow beryl and a 1.75-carat aquamarine, surrounded by white, pink, yellow and blue diamonds, which form a modified marquise shape on the finger. As these stones extend beyond the knuckle of the finger, a decision was made to engineer a tension spring movement into the ring itself to optimise comfort. “To take this ring even further, we blackened the metal to give it the ultimate look of a comet streaking through the solar system,” Lisa explains. “This design process really taught us that the combined magic of the cutter and the designer can create something ‘out of this world’!”
I’d also like to briefly mention a special pair of earrings that were one of my first introductions to Robert Guild. The QE II earrings secured the AGTA Spectrum Award for ‘Best Use of Colour’ in 2022 and are set with a pair of rare kornerupines (totalling 3.74 carats) purchased on the day of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s death. These are combined in a regal design with a duo of yellow sapphires, weighing 9.15 carats total, and a pair of cushion-cut mint green tourmalines, adding another 21.54 carats. Lisa tells the story: “The design for these earrings happened in a magical moment… It was kismet! We started looking at our rare kornerupines and immediately realised they were fit for a queen, and they coincidentally were shaped a bit like a crown.” To complete their vision, a diamond crown was added atop each kornerupine, and amethyst scrolls were added to evoke the gates of Buckingham Palace and hint at the letter ‘M’ for Her Majesty.
“The best compliment we received from one of the judges was that he woke up the next day thinking about our earrings!” Robert Galustian.
By getting to know the Robert Guild aesthetic, it’s clear that this brand isn’t a one-trick pony; Lisa and Robert are also adept at structural and geometric goldwork without punchy colours. This is best expressed through the new Shattered collection, which is inspired by graphic, fractal patterns from the art world. This offering of earrings, cuff bracelets and rings plays with scale to channel elements of mathematics, nature and art through 18k yellow gold and sparingly placed diamonds. Standouts in the collection are the Orbiting fractal earrings with irregular quadrilaterals of gold that spin as the wearer moves, punctuated with 164 reverse-set round brilliant-cut diamonds, and the dynamic, four-inch-long Shattered cuff bracelet that really dominates the wrist. If I had to guess, I would also say that the skyscrapers and Art Deco buildings of the brand’s native Chicago have played a role in this new collection. “The city is a constant inspiration,” Lisa says, “as it leads us to consider differing points of view with hard edges and soft edges, lightness and darkness, and various proportions with dashes of nature. These things are all swirling around in our consciousness and make their way into our designs.”
Like so many designers before them, both Lisa and Robert worked for years behind the scenes in other companies before striking out on their own. Their success since they opted to pursue their own design journey is a testament, at least in my opinion, to their distinctive, combined point of view. During our conversation, they reminisced on their first visit to the JCK show in Tucson, Arizona, in 2019, where they presented a small collection of jewels, including a pair of marquise-shaped lilac amethyst earrings. By the end of that trip, those earrings had won a design award. It was this kind of early confidence boost that has allowed Robert Guild to grow to where it is today.
Looking ahead, there are two projects in the pipeline. “The first is going to showcase the metamorphosis of a butterfly in a necklace design made from Namibian chalcedony with pastel colour gemstone accents,” Lisa tells me, adding that they may enter this piece into the upcoming AGTA Spectrum Awards. The second incorporates a significant 21.81-carat oval-shaped Paraiba from Mozambique, which they would like to design as a ring. Robert describes this stone as “glowing with some sort of otherworldly energy,” which is precisely why I will be counting down the months until I can see it in real life! With so much chromatic beauty on the horizon, now is a great time to get to know this Gold Coast treasure.
