OUR STORY

The return of
a forgotten art

Metal Nails began with a question a jeweller could not answer:

why is every other part of the hand allowed to wear precious metal,

except the nail?


One drawing,
in red ink

The first Metal Nails piece was a sketch on bench paper — an outline taken from one finger, with the width written beside it and the curve drawn in section.That drawing is still how every nail begins.

Nothing about it was new technique.It was a jeweller's method pointed at a part of the hand nobody had made jewelry for.

THE IDEA

 A nail, treated as jewelry 

 Not a manicure 

A manicure is a finish applied to you and removed from you. A piece of jewelry is an object you own, take off, put back on, and keep. Metal Nails are the second thing.

 Solid, never plated 

Solid 925 sterling all the way through, so the edge is the same metal as the face and a scratch polishes out instead of showing the base underneath.

 Worn, not displayed 

Shower in them, swim in them, sleep in them. They pick up a patina with time, and two minutes with a cloth brings the polish back.

One Room

in New York

Patterns, shaping, filing, texturing, polishing and stamping all happen

in the same place. Nothing is sent out and nothing arrives finished.

A close-up, top-down view of a jewelry-making workspace featuring a pair of needle-nose pliers with reddish-brown handles, small silver nails, and a piece of wood on a dark, rustic wooden workbench.
Close-up of a jeweler's hands shaping a small polished silver cabochon with a metal tool, next to a wooden workbench holding raw silver pieces.
A close-up of a polished silver metal nail head mounted on a textured, weathered brown metal surface.
A close-up of a hand with metallic silver nail polish holding a small oval metal piece engraved with the words 'metal nails'.
A close-up of a person's hands using a rotary diamond grinding tool to shape a small white object against a solid black background.
The finished piece

 Shaped. Filed.Polished. Hallmarked. 

Six grades of polish, each removing the marks left by the last, and a 925 stamp struck by hand into the underside — not printed, not etched.

At the end it is set back on its own pattern and checked against it. If it does not sit, it is made again.

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