Ara Vartanian On Jewelry Families, His Love Affair with Diamonds and a Horse Named Caramelo

When Ara Vartanian started designing jewelry 22 years ago, his unique creations stirred the industry for their edgy style. According to the Brazilian jeweler, his signature inverted natural diamond setting was an homage to the gemstone’s beauty from all sides, not an act of subversion against traditional craftsmanship. Vartanian spoke to Only Natural Diamonds over Zoom from his home in the mountains in Southeastern Brazil. The jewelry brand founder, CEO, and designer shared his unique approach to gemstones and more.

With a sprawling and lush mountainside vista as his backdrop, Vartanian divulged his creation process, which led to his latest jewelry family release, Flare. The jeweler is a stickler who avoids the word collection and prefers to create families instead. “A family can be added too,” he points out while describing the latest one.

“Flares are that skirt-like trim on a car wheel; race cars have a lot of them,” Vartanian explained, adding that his hobbies include motorsports, vintage cars, and motorcycles. Thus, the drape-effect design on a shoulder-duster earring style—in gold tubes with inverted diamonds poking out each end or made entirely with baguette diamonds, each graduating in size—recalls the curved car part.

“When I design, I don’t look at references in books. It’s something in my consciousness that comes up during the creation process. I use this to transform the stones and settings into a design. Flare was like that; it’s genuine. If I am looking at a book with trees and forests, it would be cheating for me if I did a collection based on those elements such as leaves and seeds.”

The expansive lush green and blue-sky vista in the frame behind Vartanian does look inspiring. Still, it is a far cry from the images of destruction coming from Brazil caused by the recent unprecedented flooding and circulating in the media. One of those images, which captured the nation and beyond, prompted Vartanian to design a piece with philanthropic intent. When the aftermath of the floods was captured on social media, a horse was seen stranded on top of a rooftop. Nicknamed Caramelo, netizens rallied around the animal’s eventual rescue.

“The image of the horse was touching; it created empathy among people seeing the vulnerable animal. So, I said, ‘Let’s create something to remind us of that moment of empathy,” the jeweler explained. The result is a carved crystal pendant with the horse’s image that will sell for $1,600 and fifty percent of sales will be donated to an NGO that helps save human and animal lives. He also donated funds to Movimento União BR Nonprofit organization which is providing flood relief and previously made a similar piece benefitting an orphanage in Haiti.

When designing, I put myself in the position to be curious about what’s next.

Vartanian uses the interview opportunity to clear up a misconception that his work is marked more by colorful gemstones such as Paraiba tourmalines, emeralds, and Burmese rubies than diamonds. The designer suggests it has to do with his client events in the past aimed at educating and enriching the client’s buying experience by focusing on a particular stone.

In April 2023, the brand inaugurated its first US flagship store, part of an intentionally controlled growth strategy, in Bal Harbour. According to Vartanian, his clients hail from all ends of the globe, especially Latin countries, and consider him a color stone jewelry designer.

Still, his Armenian-Lebanese family background includes being the son of a Brazil-based diamond dealer, with whom he also worked buying and selling stones in diamond centers such as Antwerp, New York, and Hong Kong before launching the Ara Vartanian brand. When he switched gears into designing them, he was acutely aware that most consider the stone’s table its only ‘good side’ and decided to play with that idea.

“It’s creativity, so let’s have some fun, use humor, and design them upside down. My dad thought it was an act of rebellion, making them punk or rock and roll,” he said. From the start, Vartanian always sought to display the stone’s unexpected side, which marked his design approach. He often drew odd looks from dealers as he considered finding uniform tips to purchase.

“When designing, I put myself in the position to be curious about what is next. It’s my internal challenge, and I don’t bullshit myself,” he said. An example of this is not creating drop earrings out of two pear-shaped stones, the popular choice, but instead, placing them unconventionally on a necklace.

“It was my love affair with diamonds that led me to turn them upside down and show the beauty of its back.”