When the London jewelry designer Shola Branson was getting ready for “Brilliant and Black,” a selling exhibition by Black designers in 2022, he decided to experiment with black rhodium.
He added a layer of the precious metal to the recessed central area of his yellow gold Cartouche Ring, which was pavé-set with brown diamonds in various sizes and surrounded by smaller white diamonds.
“I was like, ‘Is this going to ruin the whole ring? I don’t know if I should do this,’” Mr. Branson said. “And then I was like, ‘Oh wow, it adds a completely different dimension to it.’”
Since then, he has used different shades of rhodium, setting colored gemstones in a gunmetal shade, and diamonds in a darker, almost black plating. He said the mix had become something of a signature in his contemporary signet rings, pendants, earrings and bangles: “The contrast completely changes the aesthetic.”
Mr. Branson is one of many contemporary jewelry designers using black rhodium. Victoire de Castellane has employed it at Dior, as have independent designers such as Solange Azagury-Partridge, Noor Fares and Lucy Delius. “Originally, the pioneer of it was JAR,” said the designer-maker Jessie Thomas, referring to Joel Arthur Rosenthal, the Parisian jeweler best known by his initials. “I would say he sparked the renaissance of purposefully blackened diamond jewelry.”
Ms. Thomas, who works from a studio in London’s Chelsea neighborhood, has been using black rhodium as a backdrop for pavé-set white diamonds and as a border around gemstones set in scalloped yellow gold bands, an effect she likened to eyeliner. “It makes things feel quite cool and modern,” she said.
Her jewelry is plated in rhodium by a specialist workshop in Hatton Garden, London’s jewelry manufacturing district. “They always think I’m really mad for doing it like that, but I like it just on the edge,” she said. The contrast between the black background and white diamonds makes diamonds look brighter and whiter, she added. “I quite like the little hint of it that then makes the diamond pop.”
Rhodium, a silvery-white metal, was first separated from platinum by the British chemist William Hyde Wollaston in 1803 and has been used to plate silver objects, cutlery and jewelry since the 1930s. And most white gold jewelry made today is plated with rhodium to increase its luster and durability.
As a byproduct of platinum mining, about 80 percent of the world’s current production of rhodium comes from South Africa. It also is found in Russia as well as the Americas.
Black rhodium plating is created with a solution that contains additives to darken its color. Once a piece of jewelry is polished, it is dipped into the solution while an electric current is passed through, causing a chemical reaction in which the rhodium adheres to the gold. The composition of the solution, its temperature and the voltage dictate the precise shade of the plating, Ms. Thomas said.
The process, known as electroplating, creates a uniform color that mimics the look of oxidized silver — metal that has tarnished with age and wear, an effect that can also be achieved by dipping the metal in a sulfuric solution. As a result, jewelers often use black rhodium to create an antique look.
The designer Jessica McCormack, for example, was inspired by the oxidized silver antique jewelry she came across in 2006 while working in the jewelry department at Sotheby’s in London.
“I was particularly drawn to the blackened rings — the striking contrast between the brightness of the Old Cut center stones and the darkened settings,” she wrote in an email. “There was something wonderfully moody and romantic about them that always caught my eye.” Her 2008 debut collection, named Messenger of the Gods, used oxidized silver with diamonds, and the first piece she sold was a pair of earrings in the shape of wings that was bought by Rihanna, she wrote.
Now, Ms. McCormack uses black rhodium plating over gold rather than oxidized silver, as she wrote that she preferred the “darker, glossier effect of rhodium.” It has become a signature of her antique-inspired designs, including her Gypset earrings and Button Back engagement rings. “Setting a diamond in blackened gold completely transforms the mood of a piece — it gives it an antique-y feel which is hard to achieve when it is newly made,” she wrote.
For Selim Mouzannar, a French-Lebanese jeweler in Beirut, black rhodium settings evoke softness and create a depth that he likened to an artistic element: “When a painting is perfect, you don’t feel any emotion. It needs some nuance.”
He said he had used the technique for more than 20 years, having first deployed it on an Ottoman-inspired Burmese ruby and diamond ring. “It was glamorous, it was nostalgic, it was contemporary, it was a real mixture,” he said.
The designer Jenna Grosfeld, the founder of Jenna Blake, has been collecting antique jewelry since the early 2000s. So when she started her fine jewelry brand in 2014, she gravitated toward antique diamonds and blackened gold settings reminiscent of Georgian and Victorian styles.
“It definitely enhances the beauty of the setting or the stone,” she said, “and the contrast that it creates is so dramatic and compelling, it just draws the eye in.”
At Ms. Grosfeld’s workshop in Los Angeles, goldsmiths oxidize silver or use black rhodium plating on yellow gold, depending on the design, to achieve what she called “a heavier, more defined look.”
Her Diamond Fringe necklace, for example, features approximately six carats of Old Mine cut diamonds encased in either yellow or blackened gold. “I definitely have two schools of clients: some do not like blackened at all; it’s too vintage,” she said. “But my other clients who appreciate it really like more of an eclectic aesthetic, that looks more collected over time and layered and less perfect.”
Mr. Branson agreed that the blackened gold effect is not for everybody. “You need to have a kind of a taste for jewelry to be attracted to that kind of aspect,” he said. “It’s not like your standard, super-accessible entry-level piece of jewelry.”
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