A single Itay Yona ring can take days — sometimes weeks — to complete. Not because the design is complicated in the architectural sense, but because Itay refuses to move to the next step until each previous one feels exactly right. There is no cutting corners, no approximating. Every decision is made at the bench, in real time, with the piece in hand.
“The work tells you when it's ready. You learn to listen. It took me years to understand that — and it changed everything.”
The process begins with metal selection. For a gold ring, Itay sources 14k or 18k gold in sheet or wire form, examining the gauge, the alloy color, and the texture. He tests the metal's response to his tools — the way it takes a bend, how cleanly it shears, whether it work-hardens too quickly.
Stone setting comes last, and it is the step Itay describes as the most intimate. The stone has been chosen weeks or months before — often before the metal work has even begun — and the entire design is, in some sense, built around it. When stone meets setting for the first time, Itay says, it either sings or it doesn't. You can feel it in your hands.
The final piece is never polished to a mirror finish unless the design calls for it. Itay prefers a softer, more organic surface — one that looks as though it was always meant to be worn, never to sit behind glass.
