On a current trip in Careyes, Mexico, Sara Beltrán scoured the seashore on the lookout for lovely seashells for her Dezso jewellery line. And discovering an uncommon one, she thinks, is like discovering a terrific Diamond.

“Amazing shells are hard to find,” Ms. Beltrán, a New York-based designer, mentioned. “You can’t buy them or create them; it’s a gift from Mother Nature.”

Ms. Beltrán is amongst a bunch of designers who’re mixing humble mollusk shells with gems, together with gold and different treasured metals, in upscale up to date jewellery.

One other such designer is Glenn Spiro, who buys Victorian-era objects adorned with shells from antiques sellers, then removes these shells to be used in new designs. For instance, one in every of his earring designs featured giant snail shells, every shell enhanced with a central 4.5-carat diamond surrounded by greater than 150 tiny diamonds, whereas one other design starred greenish scaphopod shells, additionally referred to as tusk shells, every scaphopod encrusted with eight pear-shape diamonds totaling virtually 4 carats and small white diamonds totaling virtually a half-carat. Costs begin at $20,000.

Even the French home Boucheron embellished a brown and white marbled seashell, conus marmoreus, with 286 diamonds totaling 6.54 carats for a brooch in its Carte Blanche excessive jewellery assortment, a 26-piece set referred to as Ailleurs, unveiled in Paris in July 2022.

“It is the goal of high jewelry to arouse emotion and poetry, and it is our duty to question what is considered precious,” the home’s artistic director, Claire Choisne, wrote in an e-mail. “If someone understands the message, and the creativity, she or he will fall in love with this kind of piece, just like clients of contemporary art would.”

She mentioned that whereas most individuals affiliate “precious” with giant, shiny diamonds and different gems, for her, it’s the other. Her excessive jewellery collections have featured bamboo, marble and sand: “I wanted to show that precious materials are also found in nature, as I think it is the best designer in the world.”

Whereas many would possibly contemplate such approaches trendy or novel, this technique of working with shells will not be new. These designers are literally bringing shells again to their roots: For many of historical past, shells have been extremely valued, and even used as forex. Cowrie shells, as an example, have been used as forex in West Africa as early because the 14th century, and later, they have been used for buying and selling amongst African, Asian and European nations. For hundreds of years, Native People formed clam and conch shells into beads, a few of which have been added to ceremonial clothes and equipment, whereas others have been used as a forex generally known as wampum.

Within the early Forties, shell jewellery developed, when Fulco di Verdura, the Italian aristocrat turned New York jewellery designer, usual lion’s paw and scallop shells into glamorous assertion items worn by clients just like the Commonplace Oil heiress Millicent Rogers and the actress Paulette Goddard. The designer bought a few of these shells from the American Museum of Pure Historical past in New York, and had them set with gold, diamonds and sapphires.

The New York jeweler Seaman Schepps additionally created his signature turbo shell earrings within the Forties. The model originated when a consumer requested him to show a pair of turbo shells from the Indian Ocean into earrings. The earrings, adorned with diamonds and different gems, proceed to be a greatest vendor for the model, which is now owned by Anthony Hopenhajm.

“There is a lot of great historical jewelry,” he mentioned. “But there are very few designs like our turbo shell earrings that are still worn today by both women in their 20s and their grandmothers.”

A shell’s natural magnificence appears to draw everybody from the beachcombers who pluck them from the shore to jewelers, who see in them myriad methods to convey texture, sample and quantity to their designs.

As sea creatures secrete layers of calcium carbonate to kind exhausting shells to guard their delicate our bodies, the uniform patterns and ranging hues that make shells so fascinating are created within the course of, mentioned Jessica Goodheart, assistant curator of mollusca on the American Museum of Pure Historical past in New York.

“The coiled patterns are shaped when the snail’s body rotates during torsion,” Dr. Goodheart mentioned, “and the varying colors come from chemicals generated either internally or as the result of something absorbed in the diet.” When the shells are discarded, they finally wash up on the shore.

Many individuals affiliate shells with informal jewellery kinds, just like the puka shell necklaces of the Seventies and the cowrie shells of the Nineteen Nineties. However in the present day, as designers search for extra uncommon and natural components, shells have come to the forefront once more.

The natural origins of shells are what attracted Claudia Ortega, an inside designer based mostly in Mexico Metropolis, to Ms. Beltrán’s jewellery.

“Sara is one of the jewelers who is breaking new ground and showing us that jewelry doesn’t have to be so rigid and made in just gold and gemstones,” mentioned Ms. Ortega, who has been gathering Ms. Beltrán’s work for greater than a decade. “Her pieces are fun and contemplative, and they aren’t a show of money or value, but they say so much more about the person who wears them.”

For Ms. Beltrán, the worth of her designs isn’t within the value of their gold or gems. “The shells remind me of the sea, of the smells, the sounds and peacefulness,” she mentioned.

She brings the shells she’s gathered — on the seashore, or by way of visits to a shell supplier in Paris — to Jaipur, India, the place she designs items, impressed by the symmetry of Artwork Deco model, after which has them made by craftspeople with whom she has labored for years.

“I lay out all the shells and pair them with the gemstones that will enhance their colors and patterns,” Ms. Beltrán mentioned. For instance, she topped every of her white conical shell earrings with a one-carat polki diamond set in 18-karat rose gold; paired a big orange clam shell with a three-carat Madeira citrine for a necklace; and adorned an orange noticed mitra stictica shell with a three-carat emerald-cut citrine that had been set in 18-karat rose gold. Costs for her shell designs vary from $1,700 to $20,000, relying on the gems.

For the previous 20 years, the Brazilian designer Silvia Furmanovich has additionally used pure components in her colourful jewellery. These components embrace bamboo, wooden and shells, and, she mentioned, she continues to search for different uncommon supplies and artisan-made crafts to include into her designs.

On a 2019 journey to Kyoto, Japan, as an example, she bought some vintage clam shells that had been painted in gold leaf with scenes from Japanese literature to be used in an identical sport referred to as Kai-awase that was fashionable throughout the Edo interval (1603-1868). She turned these shells into earrings set with gold and diamonds, some accented with emeralds, others with fireplace opals.

And through a visit, to Sedona, Ariz., she met some American Indian artists who specialised in inlaying gems in shells, and enlisted their expertise in creating a brand new capsule assortment of knickknack, impressed by their conventional motifs. Among the many new items is a set of lavender shell earrings with amethysts and diamonds, accented with mosaics product of abalone, mother-of-pearl and turquoise, crafted by these artisans whom she met in Arizona.

Ms. Furmanovich mentioned she is touched by the great thing about shells: “They remind me of the spirit of the sea, summer, nature and joy.”