I am endlessly fascinated by the work of Alp Sagnak, the New York–based Turkish jeweler with a flair for the dark and dramatic.
Rock ’n’ roll, gothic, playful, macabre—there are many ways to describe Sagnak’s creations. But where he most excels is storytelling: No detail is created without purpose, and inspiration runs throughout.
With his newest piece, which the designer named the Persian ring, I was drawn to its combination of color and shape. A heavenly blue flecked with gold, its turquoise appears straight out of a painting, and its pyramid-esque setting looks exotic. But it’s not merely the ring’s aesthetics that make it compelling.
“The reason it is called the Persian is because it is a Persian turquoise—it is a double-finger ring like the one you saw at the JCK Show last year with citrine,” Sagnak tells me via email. “I was at the Palm Beach Show in January, and there was a Persian dealer that was selling turquoise. He had a very nice selection—mostly ovals. I saw this one because it was different than the others.
“I am not Persian, but I was born into a Muslim culture in Turkey, a continuation of the Ottoman Empire. The Persian Empire and Ottoman Empire and their cultures are very similar, and their past is extremely rich, like the Turks’.
“Both cultures executed architecture with domes as a roof structure. I made the ring as a curved, or arched, triangle to emphasize the change in both our cultures—a modern version of the domes. And therefore the turquoise in the middle became a door with tiles, an entrance to the modern version of both cultures.”
Top: The Persian ring in yellow gold and silver with 29 ct. Persian turquoise, 1.23 cts. t.w. sapphires, and 2.36 cts. t.w. diamonds, $14,500; Alp Sagnak
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