The Hallam Cluster

A cluster is a way of getting a great deal of light out of very little stone, and it is one of the oldest tricks in the trade. Before the modern brilliant cut existed, a single small stone could not do much on its own; grouped tightly and set at slightly different heights, seven of them will throw more light across a room than one stone four times their combined weight.

The Hallam is built the way Georgian clusters were: the stones sit in individual cut-down collets, the collets are soldered to each other rather than to a flat plate, and the whole face is domed. Doming is the part people miss. A flat cluster looks like a badge; a domed one reads as a single curved surface that happens to be made of stones, and it catches light at every angle of the hand rather than only when held straight.

We use old cuts almost exclusively here, and usually recycled ones. Old European and old mine cuts were faceted by eye to burn under candlelight — bigger facets, higher crowns, open culets — and they produce a slower, warmer flash than a modern brilliant. In a cluster this matters enormously: thirteen modern brilliants read as glitter, thirteen old cuts read as fire. It also means no two Hallams have ever looked the same, because you cannot buy thirteen matching hand-cut stones; you assemble them.

The band is deliberately plainer than the face. Two point two millimetres, square-sectioned, no engraving, no shoulder stones. The cluster is doing enough.

What changes per commission: the number of stones and therefore the diameter of the face, whether the stones are diamonds, sapphires or a mix, and how high the dome sits. We have made a low seven-stone version for someone who wears gloves at work and a tall thirteen-stone version that is closer to a Georgian dress ring than an engagement ring. If you bring us inherited stones, this is usually the shape we suggest, because a cluster can absorb stones that do not match.