BUCHERER FINE JEWELLERY
The Making of Tamara and Filippo’s Wedding Bands
For fashion influencer Tamara Kalinic and her partner Filippo, choosing wedding bands was a deeply personal journey. During a visit to the Bucherer Fine Jewellery Atelier in Lucerne, the pair met with artisans and designers to begin a collaborative process of creating custom rings that would mark their union.
3 Minutes
Two Rings, One Shared Journey
Tamara and Filippo have distinct personal styles. Hers is romantic and vintage-inflected while his is raw and rock n’ roll. Yet those contrasts have always complemented one another. That unique dynamic influenced the wedding rings themselves. From the outset, Tamara envisioned a wedding band that would perfectly embrace her engagement ring. This required a bespoke design, sculpted to sit seamlessly alongside the existing piece to create a harmonious pairing. Filippo, meanwhile, gravitated toward a minimal design with unmistakable character that balances Tamara's more ornamental style. “There is individual beauty, but also a feel of togetherness which is a theme for us both,” says Tamara.
That philosophy extended to what the rings were meant to symbolize: "Permanence without heaviness," she explains. "Marriage, at least the version I am interested in, is not a monument. It is a daily practice." The rings needed to be beautiful, certainly, but just as importantly made to be lived in. Pieces that would become part of the everyday life rather than objects admired from a distance.
“For me jewellery is memory made physical. I grew up watching my mother clean the special pieces she was given at her graduation, at her wedding, when she had her first child, then her second. Each one was tied to something emotional and completely personal.”
Tamara Kalinic
Bringing a Vision to Life
Every bespoke creation begins with a conversation. For Tamara and Filippo, that dialogue evolved into a series of sketches that translated their story into a design, then into detailed computer-aided design (CAD) renderings that served as the blueprint for every stage of the process. Although created together, each ring followed its own path through the atelier.
With a discerning eye for fashion and fine jewellery, Tamara knew she wanted to be closely involved throughout the creative process, and she came to the project already an admirer of Bucherer Fine Jewellery's craftsmanship and design, long before she set foot in the Lucerne atelier. “I met the artisans, spoke with the designers, and even learned a great deal about the stones themselves,” she explains. “I learned how meticulous Bucherer is about quality of every part of the process, about the finest stones, and what it means to be doing this for over a century.”
“They would show me something, I would respond to it, and we would make the tweaks together. I studied scans, looked at 3D prints, tried on countless variations. It was a genuine collaboration, a joint effort to make something this specific and personal,” says Tamara.
“The pieces I love most are always the ones with the biggest stories. A watch I bought myself at an important moment. And now these rings, which will go on to witness so many more of our milestones. That is a very big role for a small object to play.”
Tamara Kalinic
A Timeless Pair of Rings for a Lifetime
Filippo's band started as a solid tube of 18-ct gold before it was cut into its initial form, then patiently shaped, curved, and refined by hand until it achieved its precise proportions and perfect fit. Tamara's ring followed a different process, beginning as a 3D-printed model before being cast in 18-ct white gold and then meticulously finished by hand. Its defining feature was 57 individually selected brilliant-cut diamonds, each set by hand one stone at a time. Every seat was carefully prepared, and details were inspected under magnification to ensure exceptional precision.
The final touch was the most personal. Tamara and Filippo each had their own handwriting laser-engraved inside each other's bands, alongside their wedding date. Filippo's ring bears Tamara's name written in Serbian Cyrillic, the alphabet she learned as a child. After a final polish and careful inspection, the rings were ready for their reveal.
When the finished rings were finally unveiled, Tamara’s reaction surprised even herself. "Calm, which genuinely surprised me, because I am not naturally a calm person about aesthetic matters,” she recalls. “It felt like I already knew these rings. That rare, deeply satisfying feeling of looking at something and having absolutely nothing you would change.”
