Taylor Swift Is Changing the Diamond Game

Celebrities and the super-rich have ushered in a new era of enormous engagement rings and antique gems. Plus, the scene at Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration. And then:

An animation of a diamonds surface.

Illustration by Sean Dong

How Taylor Swift’s Engagement Ring Is Changing the Diamond Game

For decades, couples were told to value a certain kind of rarity. The jewelry designer Kindred Lubeck, with the help of her most famous client, is popularizing the unique qualities of old-mine-cut stones.

By Emilia Petrarca

Last fall, the jewelry designer Kindred Lubeck took an elevator up six floors to a high-end showroom in New York’s diamond district. She was buzzed inside a fluorescent-lit vestibule, then waited; the front door had to lock securely behind her before a second could open. On the other side, a man in a gray suit named Chirag Mehta greeted her.

Mehta is the president of Sim Gems USA, a diamond dealer that sources investment-worthy stones for discerning billionaires; his customers include Nita Ambani, the wife of the richest man in Asia. Mehta had only recently learned of Lubeck’s work. In August, she was revealed as the designer of Taylor Swift’s engagement ring—an old-mine brilliant cut set in a yellow-gold band that Lubeck engraved by hand. (Good luck zooming in on the photos.) By October, Lubeck had been tapped by Sotheby’s for a closed-bid online auction of three engraved rings; in December, she auctioned two more, including one five-carat, old-mine-cut stone with an obvious resemblance to Swift’s.

Lubeck, who has aquamarine eyes and long, wavy hair, cuts an ethereal figure, like an elven noble. Her father is a goldsmith, and she spent much of the pandemic in her home town, a coastal community in Florida called Neptune Beach, shadowing him at his shop. She became obsessed with metalsmithing, and started pursuing it full time, honing an antique-inspired aesthetic that quickly gained traction on social media. By the time she moved to New York, in 2024, she had started her own business, Artifex Fine, and she had a loyal following in the indie jewelry world.

Swift showed one of Lubeck’s Instagram videos to her fiancé, Travis Kelce, a year and a half before their engagement. “When I saw the ring, I was, like, ‘I know who made that, I know who made that!’ ” Swift said in a radio interview.

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What Just Happened?

Zohran Mamdani is now the mayor of New York City. His inauguration took place outside City Hall on New Year’s Day, in below-freezing temperatures.

What was the scene downtown?

“In Mamdani’s speech, he told the crowd he’d been advised to ‘reset’ the ambitious expectations his campaign had raised. ‘I will do no such thing,’ he said. It was a bold, bracing promise—particularly because of how eager some people will be to blame Mamdani for anything that might fall short of those expectations, starting with the long lines and disruptive street closures at the wintery inauguration ‘block party.’ (‘Bloomberg’s shit was in order,’ I overheard one member of the press corps grumble, while trying to navigate a confusing access point outside the event.) Personally, I was moved by Lucy Dacus’s performance of the socialist anthem ‘Bread and Roses,’ and—notwithstanding the ‘warmth of collectivism’ Mamdani invoked in his address—was very glad that I had worn three sweaters.”

—Molly Fischer, a staff writer who attended the inauguration and whose new column, New York Journal, will cover Mamdani’s leadership of the city.

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P.S. Meet the other woman who’s shaking up the diamond industry. 💎

Erin Neil contributed to today’s edition.

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