Cool and unusual

The London-based jeweller Glenn Spiro has an audacious sense of style that combines precious gemstones and diamonds with unconventional and sometimes modest artefacts. A buffalo-bone bangle that juxtaposes elephant-tail hair with thousands of orangey-brown diamonds and two rose-cut diamonds embodies his nonconformist ways.

“There has to be some humour and humbleness in this business,” says Spiro, who in May moved his jewellery salon into the impressive Mayfair, London address once occupied by Norman Bishop Hartnell’s fashion house.

Each of Spiro’s one-of-a-kind designs (prices are available upon request) starts with a unique stone or series of gems, such as the 20 carats of coloured diamonds set in a pair of lightweight titanium earrings. His knack for the unpredictable shines through in pieces that include a diamond-and-wood cuff, a diamond-and-white-gold cuff with rough-cut and faceted emeralds, a brown-and-white diamond ring in a setting of brown and white titanium, and a 24.72-carat emerald ring with diamonds.

Another of his latest designs boasts a rare 21-carat antique old-mine cushion-cut diamond set in blue titanium. “It would have been a hell of a lot easier to set this in a classic ring,” he says. “But it would be such a shame to put a stone like this into something you know and expect.”