The jewelry designer Matthew Harris often wears on his pinkie an eye-catching signet ring with the letter M in diamonds embedded under its crystal surface. The ring is nothing like the classic gold signet that his father wore, or the one he was given when he graduated from high school.
Signet rings are a family tradition in his native Jamaica — a remnant of its 300 years as a colony of Britain, where the rings with a family’s coat of arms or insignia have long been popular. Mr. Harris said he was initially drawn to the ring’s history, but when he designed a version for his Mateo New York collection, he used the ring’s typically flat surface as a canvas for his own sense of style.
“We found a modern way to add a twist to the classic signet ring,” Mr. Harris said, describing how he created 14-karat gold signets with flat surfaces in malachite, mother-of-pearl and turquoise, each appointed with a single off-center diamond ($1,800).
Signet rings were one of Mateo’s earliest designs and remain a best seller, he said, “because people want timeless classics that they can wear every day.”
The style has been traced to 3500 B.C., when Mesopotamians wore cylindrical seals that would be rolled onto wax or clay to authenticate documents, and examples were discovered in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs. Traditionally the rings have been personalized with insignia or messages, which would make a signet a particularly meaningful gift on Valentine’s Day, an occasion that typically oozes with sentiment.
