GLAMOROUS ACCESSORIES: Architectural Rings by Philippe Tournaire

How beautiful are these rings, designed and created by French custom jeweller Philippe Tournaire? I love the wonderful craftsmanship, the colours and most of the all the idea of these city-shaped rings. Surprisingly though, he is not the first person to draw on the idea of 'architecture rings', explaining that they were first discovered to be used, in fact, during the Merovingian age (which was early Europe around 500 to 752 AD) and often worn by aristocratic women. Tounaire has drawn on this idea to create his own designs from precious metals like platinum, golds and silvers, as well as precious stones and enamel to make these mini-urban masterpieces to wear on your hand.

My favourite has to be this beautiful spired one below (I'm guessing inspired by Russia's beautiful St Basil's Cathedral), which is prettily coloured and designed to look like a miniature landmark which makes for very pretty artwork as well as jewellery.

I think this may be a little chunky for some people's delicate fingers, but I do love how well-crafted these rings are, and the detail which has gone into these.
Here's just a few more of his wonderful designs based on different cities and styles from around the world in various colours and sizes:

Below shows the process which is used to help create these rings, and the planning which goes into it (okay it's been simplified here I know, but it still gives an idea!):

Images belong to Philippe Tournaire

Unfortunately, these rings don't come cheap, which is to be expected with expensive metals and stones, but I think it can be agreed that these really do reflect the fact that they are bespoke pieces - and it'll be hard to find anything like these anywhere else! Anyone want to buy me one of these?