Notes from the house
The Journal
Stories from the Beirut bench, the Baghdad and Erbil boutiques, and the families we've dressed for their biggest days.
10 stories
Forty hours at the Beirut bench
How a single solitaire travels from a loose stone in a paper to the ring a bride wears home from Al-Mansour.
The shabka, kept and remade
Three families on the gold they inherited — and what they asked us to make from it.
Reading a certificate in five minutes
Cut, colour, clarity, carat — and the one line most buyers skip.
Erbil, two years on
Our northern door, its regulars, and the case that changes every week.
What chlorine does to a claw
Why the hammam is the hardest place on a ring, and a two-minute habit that helps.
Notes on 21 karat
The colour Iraqi families ask for by name, and why it behaves differently at the bench.
Choosing a band to sit beside it
Flush, curved, or apart — a fitting-room guide to the wedding band.
Old cuts, new light
Why we re-set antique diamonds rather than re-cut them — and when we don't.
A morning at Al-Karrada
Coffee, the first clients through the door, and the piece everyone asks to try.
Pearls in the summer heat
Humidity, perfume and silk thread: keeping pearls bright through an Iraqi August.