In jewelry, like life, timing is everything: Two years ago, Cast founder Rachel Skelly and designer Stacy Nolan Soper were studying gemstones while walking the Tucson jewelry shows and talking through a new collaboration.
Then, a worldwide pandemic hit, and their collaboration went largely online. But the creative flow between the two kept moving forward as visions of a collection taking the rich hues of gemstones and classic jewelry shapes like the dome ring took form.
The resulting collection, Color High, launched this month between the San Francisco–based fine jewelry brand and Soper, the newest member of the female-focused jewelry collective that also includes Kristy Ford, Francesca Villa, and Alice Cicolini.
Color High takes keepsake-worthy shapes and drenches them in glossed ceramic. Its colors are inspired from those gemstone hues, earning dynamic names: Coral Poppy, Peacock Pop, Cobalt Blue, Vintage Mint, and White Dove. The collection also includes diamonds, amazonite, and white moonstone. Prices range from $450 to $1,200.
“We were in a very different place when we started dreaming this up. The timing now seems ideal,” Soper says. “The meaning really carried us through.”
Soper says Skelly and the Cast team reached out to her in 2019, and she welcomed the opportunity to design a collection with them. The Los Angeles–based designer uses locally sourced materials; follows honored, traditional jewelry techniques; and seeks to create jewelry that sparks creativity and celebrates strength.
Skelly, who also serves as Cast’s chief creative officer, says Soper’s skills with clean, sculptural lines felt like a natural match for the collection Cast wanted to create. Skelly’s mood board had dome rings on it, serving as the inspiration of Color High’s whole look.
“You can be big and bold with it but also elegant and a little softer,” Skelly says. “We wanted to be able to create a collection that could be dressed up or down.”
Soper agrees. “There’s a simplicity to the top [of a dome ring] yet it is striking,” she says. “It gives the wearer permission to have fun but also be themselves. They can feel comfortable and confident in it.”
With her graphic design background, Skelly sees color in Pantone while Soper’s color references come from a jeweler’s perspective of gemstones. The resulting meeting in Tucson brought their ideas together as they thought about how those stones could be translated through ceramic. So, turquoise became Peacock Pop. Playing with color blocking resulted in a blend of red and fiery orange that became the Poppy Coral.
The collection’s name, Color High, serves as a bow to the feeling you have when you’re in your element and really rocking it, Skelly says. There’s a positivity and levity to that moment when your energy is at an all-time high.
This is Cast’s first full collection with Soper; the two previously worked together on the Daring Pirouette ring, a two-tone pearl ring that Soper designed within the Brazen Beauty collection. It also served as a Cast fundraising project on behalf of the San Francisco Ballet.
Top: Cast recently collaborated with with designer Stacy Nolan Soper to create the collective’s newest collection, Color High, a celebration of timeless shapes, like the dome ring, and saturated color (all photos courtesy of Cast).
Follow me on Instagram and Twitter
Follow JCK on Instagram: @jckmagazineFollow JCK on Twitter: @jckmagazine
Follow JCK on Facebook: @jckmagazine
