What is Dyne? “It’s not cookie-cutter,” says Sarah Ysabel Narici. “It’s experimental and it feels very empathetic. People who wear [our pieces] are all pretty strong individuals who know exactly what they like. It’s not sentimental, but it’s very thoughtful.” 

In more concrete terms, Dyne is the independent jewellery brand that Narici set up in 2022. Her design signature is hard to sum up, but easy to spot. A melange of references – with past creations, the designer has namechecked symbols, stories and shapes from ancient civilisations, juxtaposed with references from modern architecture – results in pieces that encircle and flow and ebb against wrists, fingers or necklines. Narici has created signet rings stamped with Egyptian hieroglyphs, and an Ambrosia ring that is set with a 4.15-carat brown diamond and nods to the ambrosia consumed by the gods from clay vessels in ancient Greek mythology.

Dyne jewellery – some pieces unique, others issued as limited-edition series – can be found at Dover Street Market, and at specialist fairs such as PAD London and Salon Art + Design at the Park Avenue Armory. Narici has also exhibited her work with auction house Phillips (in Hong Kong, Singapore and Geneva, among others). Private commissions – for which pieces slowly take shape, much in the manner of an haute couture dress or a bespoke suit, perhaps – make up a large segment of her business. Rihanna, Charli XCX and Shygirl have all worn Dyne.

British-Italian and born in Milan, Narici has lived in New York for the past eight years. She studied at Central Saint Martins in London and later at the Gemological Institute of America. In Paris, she trained with design houses on Place Vendôme, historically the nerve centre of her craft. Then, and before striking out on her own, Narici worked with influential designers Stephen Webster, Lorraine Schwartz and Marina Bulgari.

Today, the jewellery designer can be found in either one of two map points in Manhattan: one, a corporate office which Narici refers to as “the backend, where we do everything”; and a space on the Upper East Side, where Narici meets with clients. That is when she is not engaged in creating new Dyne jewellery. This she does at the home she shares with her husband and young son. “I need to be myself to design,” she explains. “When I’m designing, I try to leave myself space to work from home. That’s my most Zen thing.”

In New York, Narici’s team currently numbers three; there are also a plethora of consultants the designer commissions globally. Most importantly, there are the four and “about to be five” specialist workshops Narici collaborates with. “Most of what we do is in New York,” she says. A workshop based in Bangkok is charged with stone carving, selected for the site’s superior machinery and level of precision.

For Narici, who still sketches new pieces by hand, it’s a game of matching each design with the expert maker that is most suited to its realisation. “There is not one workshop that can do everything to the best ability,” she says. “Depending on the project, we place it with whoever is most appropriate. And of course there is a throughline between all of them as we need to make sure that everything is aligned and consistent.”

Back to Narici’s “cookie-cutter” quote: the shapes that Dyne has become known and sought after for are anything but standardised. Protection, a collection of pieces she first showcased last year at Salon Art + Design, referenced the Soviet-era work of architect and designer Galina Balashova, known for her cosmic, space age designs.

Dyne’s Pod Pour Deux hoop earrings are shaped from clear rock crystal and white gold set with white diamonds; there is a celestial beauty to the piece. Another pair of earrings, which Narici christened Tempus Fugit after a Latin phrase that roughly translates as “time flies”, is made from moonstones, sapphires, amethysts and white gold; their free-form shape sits somewhere between a sketched doodle and something we might see flashing up against a night sky. There are single earcrawlers that hug lobes just so and extend into landmark gems such as a light brown diamond, and a Virgil Loop necklace (in diamonds, mother-of-pearl and yellow gold) that is striking for its economy of line, perhaps resembling a drip of water leaving its mark on the skin of its wearer. A second Ambrosia ring, seen on these pages, centres on a 3.83-carat octagonal-cut white diamond, framed in white gold. Red gold, in the shape of four polished hoops, adds another accent.

How would Narici put in words the shapes she sketches and then concretises as jewellery? “I get ‘organic’ a lot, which somehow doesn’t really resonate with me,” she says. Instead, she prefers her work to be described as fluid and sensual. “I really like forms that kind of follow the body and that feel like they are melting into the body.”

Product design, too, has a space in Narici’s practice. She recently devised a lighter case, cast from gold and set with pink sapphires. “With the lighter, I have gone down a fairly deep rabbit hole,” she says, recalling her research process. “One of my favourite quotes that I found was that as an object, the lighter is the most stolen.” Dyne’s lighter is one to keep watch over.