Peer through the window of Annoushka Ducas’s London boutique in the evening, and you might spy women poring over diamonds and sipping Champagne. But they aren’t congregating to peruse engagement rings or push presents, they’re toasting the signing of divorce papers, and the prospect of turning the stones and settings (and emotional scars) of their wedding bands or engagement rings into a poignant new piece of jewelry. “It’s fun rather than miserable!” smiles Ducas, who has been hosting divorce ring parties in her boutiques for three years now, bringing together London’s top divorce lawyers and their clients. “There’s a lot of laughing and cameraderie… it’s really about bringing about a community together.”
Ducas is just one of a host of jewelers responding to a growing appetite for divorce rings, fueled in part by the sizeable jewels sported by A-listers after they’ve signed on the dotted line to singledom. Take Emily Ratajkowski, who back in March 2024, commemorated her divorce from her husband of two years, Sebastian Bear-McClard, with two platinum and 18-carat rings designed by Alison Lou, incorporating the pear-shaped and princess-cut diamonds from her toi et moi engagement ring. “The idea of divorce is a separation, so it was always going to be splitting the ring into two separate but complementary rings,” the brand’s founder, Alison Chemla, told Vogue. The inspiration behind EmRata’s trending pinky design? A toe ring worn by Rihanna.
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In January, original power stylist and newly inaugurated Real Housewife Rachel Zoe marked her split from her husband of over 20 years, Rodger Berman, with a jaw-dropping three-stone divorce ring designed by Ring Concierge, which transformed the huge cushion-cut diamond of her halo engagement ring. Elsewhere, celebrity dermatologist Barbara Sturm commissioned her Jessica McCormack divorce ring before her separation from husband Adam Waldman had even been finalised. “Once you’ve made the decision, you’re already there—even if the paperwork isn’t through,” she says. Posting the final creation on Instagram in October 2025—a chunky twisted gold ring with a pear-shaped diamond—she namechecked EmRata as her inspiration.
Unsurprisingly, East London jeweler Rachel Boston—who says she has been working on divorce ring commissions for the last four years—has found her clients clamouring for bespoke designs that look anything but traditionally “bridal.”
“Clients are gravitating towards pieces that feel more grounded and everyday, like chunky bands, sculptural settings, and designs that can be worn as part of a daily uniform,” she explains. “Signet style rings and wide gold bands are popular.” Chelsea-based jeweler Jessie Thomas agrees. “We see a lot of chunky yellow and white gold pieces, with heavy settings and large stones.” Tania and Dima Nawbar, of fourth-generation Beirut-based jeweler Atelier Nawbar, also note the same affinity for the oversized. A recent divorce ring commission saw the central diamond and halo stones from a wedding and engagement ring transformed into a pebble-like cocktail ring, shimmering with bezel-set diamonds.
“I hadn’t expected how often I’d absently reach for my wedding rings without thinking, or how their absence would become an unwanted reminder of the struggle I was going through,” says 32-year-old Madeleine Phillips. The East Sussex-based marketing director commissioned a divorce ring three months after her separation was finalised. “I didn’t want to repurpose my wedding or engagement rings. At that point, they felt too emotionally loaded, and looking back, I’m glad I didn’t try to bring a piece of my past into the present. I wanted something symbolic, that felt very intentional, but it needed to be new.” Working with an online jeweler, Phillips commissioned a yellow gold ring set with baguette-cut “deliberately defiant” black diamonds. “It has 11 stones, one for each year we were together. That wasn’t something I set out to do, but once I saw it, the choice felt precise, rather than sentimental.”
Phillips initially wore her divorce ring on her ring finger, before having it resized to fit her middle one. “That progression was always part of the plan I had for it, and the way the ring has evolved with me feels part of its story.” Lylie’s Eliza Walters has also noted commissions for rings designed to be worn on the middle finger, like chunky Etruscan-inspired settings, “intentionally removing any visual or symbolic association with a traditional engagement ring.” Barbara Sturm also designed her ring to sit on the middle of her hand. “But my 11-year-old daughter, Pepper, told me it looked cooler on my index finger,” she says, smiling.
Twice-divorced Victoria Comstock-Kershaw, an art critic, continues to wear both of her engagement rings stacked on her ring finger. “I’ve kept wearing after the divorce, which I’m told is absolutely insane, but my logic was: I liked them enough at the time, and I continue to trust my taste in jewelers more than I trust my taste in men,” she says. At her weddings, the 27-year-old had exchanged vows with rings she already owned: choosing first a green tourmaline and silver ring gifted to her by her grandmother, and then a diamond and lilac sapphire band from a now-defunct jeweler in Burlington Arcade that was originally a 21st birthday present to her mother, who gave it to her daughter when she turned 21.
“Aesthetically, I find them immensely satisfying (I often get my nails done to match the first one),” she says. “Socially, they are simultaneously a good deterrent to flash at flirters (‘sorry, married!’) and a great conversation starter with anybody who compliments them (‘what do you mean your second husband?’). I don’t deep dive into the divorce aspect too much, as the rings already have so much history to them… the fact that they were used as witnesses to a few failed marriages is just part of their story.”
It doesn’t have to be a ring, either. Barbara Sturm repurposed two small pear-shaped diamonds from her original engagement ring into earrings, while Annoushka and Rachel Boston have had enquiries into pendant necklaces.
“Divorce has a way of unsettling your sense of self. Change was going to be uncomfortable regardless, so I chose to mark it on my own terms, with a reminder of the version of me who chose decisiveness over doubt, at a point when that really mattered,” says Phillips. “Now, my ring feels more about confidence than recovery. I’m complimented on it surprisingly often, which always makes me smile. Not because of what it represents to anyone else, but because it reminds me that I trusted myself when it mattered.”