For Ten Thousand Things, Each Piece Begins with a Diamond

On a recent Friday afternoon visit to Ten Thousand Things in New York’s West Village, founders Ron Anderson and David Rees were feverishly sculpting gold earrings and rings for their new diamond designs. After 33 years in business, they still handmake their natural diamond jewelry at the bench in their cramped atelier behind the store.

It’s a slow, laborious practice, but that’s what keeps their creative juices flowing, forging the pieces, knowing that the hand process delivers a sensuality in style and touch that couldn’t possibly be achieved any other way. Today, they are hurrying to finish pieces for a jewelry show in Paris that is a week away, but it isn’t an unusual scene; they’re often here seven days a week making jewelry.

As longtime fixtures in the jewelry industry, the designers are as instantly recognizable and as much loved as their jewelry. Their signature style is defined by organic, sculptural forms and unusual materials: the iconic hand-carved Totem chandelier earrings made in dozens of gems—bright blue turquoise, iridescent grey labradorite, and baby pink rose quartz; chunky gemstone rings and pendants; cluster necklaces.

Diamonds
are just so
seductive.

The latest jewel in the duo’s repertoire: Diamonds. They have embraced natural white diamonds, showing stones in a range of new rings, pendants, and earrings. While they have always made the occasional diamond pieces, Rees and Anderson had focused their attention on semiprecious stones to create their large-scale, statement-making pieces.

The diamonds weren’t planned, rather when a diamond dealer visited the workshop with a cache of old mine and European cut stones, Rees, said, “I just couldn’t say no!”  

“Diamonds are just so seductive,” he said. Anderson agreed.

When considering working in diamonds, they were adamant about staying true to their style. “We aren’t interested in making cookie-cutter diamond jewelry,” said Rees. “Nobody needs more of the same.”

In keeping with their organic style, they set the vintage diamonds in hand-shaped gold charms without any prongs and hung them from rings and handmade gold chains. Called Locket Charms, the style was inspired by Victorian-era charms.

“It shows diamonds in a more stylish, relevant way,” says Rees. Designs carry the brand’s hand-touched quality, with gold bearing a soft glow that has a patina,, as though it has been worn for decades.

Each piece begins with the diamond. “We look for unique stones, something that moves us emotionally,” said Anderson. The older cuts, with wider facets and imperfections, deliver the warmth, mystery, and uniqueness that appeals to them.

The diamonds, of course, also had to be natural. “We have never used dyed gemstones,” said Rees, “we only want gems that are found in the earth, and that applies to diamonds too.”

Highlighting old-cut solitaire diamonds naturally appealed to engagement ring customers, but that wasn’t their intention. They envisioned the stylish rings, worn alone or stacked, as everyday rings. The style, said Rees, speaks to the changing taste in wedding jewelry, which is moving away from delicate rings into more statement designs, where the stone is integrated into the design, not just the star of the piece.   

we only want gems that are found in the earth, and that applies to diamonds too.”

“People are much more open to something different in wedding rings,” said Rees, “and everyone seems to want to redesign their diamond engagement rings again and again.”

Anderson, who was wearing two locket rings that he made years ago, one with a citrine and the other with a moody old diamond, said he has more diamonds waiting in a box to be set in jewelry, it’s just a matter of having the time to work on them.