Behind the Velvet Curtain: Inside the Aquison Atelier

Visitors are often surprised by the sound of our atelier: not machinery, but tapping — dozens of small hammers, files and burnishers keeping irregular time. Most of what makes an Aquison piece cannot be automated, and we have stopped apologising for it.

From drawing to wax

Every design begins twice: once as a gouache drawing in the design room, and again as a carved wax model. The wax is where proportions are argued over — a millimetre at the shoulder of a ring changes everything.

Casting, raising, setting

Gold is cast at dawn, when the workshop is coolest, then raised, filed and assembled at the bench. Stones are set last, under magnification: a pavé band like the Céleste can hold sixty stones, each with four claws individually pressed home.

The final hour

Polishing, hallmarking, certification and one last inspection under a north-facing window — daylight is still the harshest, fairest judge. Only then does a piece earn its pouch, its box and its place in a vitrine.

“Machines are consistent. Hands are attentive. Jewellery worth inheriting needs the second more than the first.”