18 Designers Create Jewelry Using Green Tourmalines

Two years ago, the jewelry designer Vanessa Fernández found herself admiring a curious green stone at a gem show in Tucson, Ariz . The Miami jeweler recalled during a recent video interview that it had a lot of inclusions, the jewelry industry's term for the natural flaws found in gems, but was "such a beautiful, unique green."

Then the vendor told her that it was a green Paraíba tourmaline.

Tourmalines are a crystalline silicate found in many colors, depending on the elements that have mixed with it. But like many jewelry designers who work with colored gems, Ms. Fernández had thought that Paraíba tourmaline — mined mainly in the Brazilian state of Paraíba and in Mozambique — existed only in a neon blue, a color often likened to that of the spray cleaner Windex.

"The market has educated us that the Windex blue color is the ideal color Paraíba," she said. "But that also creates a certain demand — and it keeps the price very high." In September, for example, Bonhams Hong Kong auctioned a 5.44-carat Paraíba tourmaline and diamond ring for $533,900.

Ms. Fernández and 17 other independent designers, including Alice Cicolini , Lauren Harwell Godfrey , Stephen Webster and Lorraine West , used Paraíba tourmalines in shades from shamrock to sage for a collection that debuted in mid-November. Starting this week, Greenwich St. Jewelers in New York City will have a selection, and the designers will sell their own pieces on their websites. Prices range from $5,000 (for a signet ring set with onyx and a tiny pear-shape green Paraíba) to $100,000 (for a pair of earrings totaling 17.02 carats).

"When you look at them, the Paraíba greens are just as vibrant, just as neon as the Windex blues, but for whatever reason, it's been overshadowed popularity-wise," said Steven Hennigan, director of business development at Cuprian & Company, which recently changed its name from Mozambique Mining. (Cuprian refers to a gemological term for tourmalines that contain copper.)

And it is the presence of copper in the tourmaline, he said, that makes Paraíbas of any hue so uncommonly bright.

Gabriella Harvey, a well-known gem consultant who worked with Cuprian & Co. on the collaboration, agreed. "Paraíba tourmaline is generally a freak of nature," she said, adding, "green Paraíba is almost like Cinderella."

Mr. Webster, the London jeweler known for making Megan Fox's engagement ring in 2022, incorporated the gems in a pair of diamond-accented hoop earrings featuring his signature thorn motif in white gold ($100,000).

He said he knew the company's mission was to introduce the green variety to the market, but he wanted to present it in the context of the more familiar blue. "So that's how I ended up with the mix I got," he said of the earrings' gems, which included cotton-candy blue Paraíbas interspersed with a spectrum of greens.

Effectively, he said, his design highlights "where the green can be, and where the blue can be, and shows how these things can work together."

Ms. Harwell Godfrey, a designer in California's Bay Area, selected a single 3.45-carat rectangular cushion-cut wintergreen Paraíba tourmaline and made it the centerpiece of a pendant ($49,995). Named Queen Bee, the pendant featured her honeybee motif updated with a tiny diamond-tipped crown. "I think it has this regal element that the Paraíba speaks to," she said.

Having previously participated in mine-to-market collaborations with De Beers and Muzo Emerald Colombia, Ms. Harwell Godfrey said she had been attracted to these types of projects because they offered a rare chance to create pieces with very expensive stones: "They're not things that I could necessarily just buy for stock and hope that they sell," she said. "So it's a really lovely opportunity to be able to create with these high price-point stones and attach my name to them."

The designers voiced enthusiasm, but what about the jewelry-loving public?

"I think green cuprian tourmaline is perfectly positioned in the market right now," said Brecken Branstrator, the editor in chief of Gem Guide, a gemstone pricing guide for the jewelry trade based in Glenview, Ill. (Ms. Branstrator said that, in line with her publication's standards, she preferred to use the technical term "green cuprian tourmaline" for all copper-bearing tourmaline originating in Mozambique as a way to distinguish it from the Brazilian Paraíba variety.)

Consumers will be likely to respond favorably to the gem when they see it set in pieces by well-known designers on Instagram and in fashion media coverage, she said — especially because "green is the color of the moment." ( Think brat .)

But even if the gem trade is motivated to sell green Paraíba and designers are inclined to use it, jewelry industry trends rarely reach peak awareness overnight. "It might take some time, maybe a few years, to build that demand," Ms. Branstrator said.