Interviewer: Julius Zheng, Editor-in-Chief of Gem Spectrum, GIA Graduate Gemologist

Introduction

Sponsored

The interview took place at No. 55 West Fuxing Road in Shanghai. Grace Tang has been based here for a year, and a Spirit Spider brooch installation is displayed alone in the window.

“It’s off-center.” She walked over, gently turned it half an inch, stepped back two paces, and only then nodded.

Before scheduling this interview, I conducted a small informal survey among industry peers. I asked five veteran jewelry professionals the same question: “What do you think of Grace Tang?” The answers fell into three categories: one said, “She really knows about gemstones”; another said, “Her work is exceptional”; another said, “She has a precise grasp of sourcing”; yet another said, “She’s extremely demanding about craftsmanship”; and the last said, “She does too many things—it’s hard to get a clear picture.”

Sponsored

That last response is precisely what I wanted to ask her about today.

Act One: What Exactly Do You Do?

Julius Zheng: Let me be direct. You have too many titles. Gemologist, artist, designer, brand founder, cultural ambassador. If you could only choose one identity to define yourself today, which would it be?

Grace Tang: (pauses for a few seconds) I’d choose “high jewelry practitioner.”

Julius Zheng: What do you mean by that?

Grace Tang: High jewelry customization is not like simple art creations, where you can let your imagination run completely free; nor is it like pure commerce, where you only look at cost and profit. The materials themselves are extremely valuable, and the margin for error is extremely low. You have to master three things simultaneously—precise business logic to control the supply chain, a refined artistic sensibility to give soul to the pieces, and deep creative experience to navigate the hidden reefs of craftsmanship. Missing any one of these, and you won’t get very far. It took me twenty years to make it work end to end.

Julius Zheng: But to others, that exactly looks like “you want to do everything.”

Grace Tang: I understand. So I want to use my real experience to break down these twenty years for you.

Act Two: The First Link—How Did You Learn to “Read the Costs”?

Julius Zheng: You said the first link is business logic. I’m curious—how did someone who would later be called an “artist” start learning to “crunch the numbers”?

Grace Tang: In 2004, when I first entered the industry, I served the European and American markets. Back then, I didn’t talk about “creation” at all. Clients gave me sketches and specifications, and I was responsible for turning them into physical pieces. That phase taught me one thing—the first lesson of jewelry is to respect the cost of materials. You need to have a clear ledger in your mind: the purchase price of a diamond, the loss from each production step, how much scrap is left after completing a necklace.

Julius Zheng: But most designers don’t need to calculate this—they’re only responsible for sketching.

Grace Tang: Because most designers don’t buy the stones. From day one, I bought and selected them myself. At the start, there was no such thing as “factory-supplied” matching—I had to do everything with my own hands. Selecting stones, matching stones, pricing—every day, sorting and categorizing from a few carats of bulk mixed parcels by shape, color, size, and grade. That’s how muscle memory for stone selection is built. Then I had to accurately calculate which grade of stones to use for which tier of pieces, so that the entire batch could generate reasonable profit while keeping scrap rates and inventory to a minimum. In those days, export business was all about price competition, so these were essential survival skills.

Julius Zheng: Did you ever lose money?

Grace Tang: Yes. Early on, I bought a very cheap bulk parcel of melee diamonds—twice the usual volume at half the price, thinking I could sort them for mid-to-low-tier American orders and make a nice profit. But there were so many low-quality stones mixed in, and the usable yield was too low, so I ended up stuck with them. But that taught me something: business logic isn’t about “saving money” at all costs—it’s about “being cautious and uncompromising at the critical junctures.”

Act Three: The Second Link—How Did You Learn to “Let the Stones Speak”?

Julius Zheng: The first link is “reading the material.” What about the second?

Grace Tang: 2017 was a turning point. That year, I won the Lorenzo de’ Medici Jewelry Award at the Florence Biennale—I was the only Chinese artist to receive it that year. The biggest takeaway from that award wasn’t the honor itself—it was that I started asking myself: What is my own language?

Julius Zheng: What was your language before that?

Grace Tang: Before, it was “speaking in the client’s language.” From 2007 to 2016, as domestic customization began to rise, what I did was “listen to the client’s story and translate it into jewelry for them.” That made me a good designer, but not yet an artist.

Julius Zheng: What pushed you across that line?

Grace Tang: I started asking myself one question: “Beyond adornment, what else can jewelry be?” Then I created Four Seasons, Parallel Worlds, Constructed Realms… One piece is called Spirit Spider—a red spider with a melting, dissolving quality. It can be worn on the body or displayed in a space. Someone asked me, “Is this jewelry or an installation?” I said, “Both. Or neither.” In that moment, I knew—I was speaking in my own language.

Act Four: The Third Link—Where Are the “Hidden Reefs” of Craftsmanship?

Julius Zheng: “Creative experience”—how is that different from “artistic sensibility”?

Grace Tang: Sensibility is about envisioning it; experience is about executing it. I’ve seen too many designers draw beautifully, only to find the piece impossible to make. In high jewelry, the margin for error is extremely low. The material cost of a single piece could be hundreds of thousands or even millions—you can’t afford failure. You have to know in advance where it will crack, where it will break, and at which step a given technique will run into problems.

Julius Zheng: Give me an example.

Grace Tang: When I was making Winter Bird, I wanted to apply the firing technique of intangible cultural heritage filigree cloisonné enamel to an 18k gold base to achieve a gradient effect of light and shadow colors. It took a year, and I ruined several gold plates in the firing process—each time, the gold loss rate was close to 20%. The craftsmanship and stone-setting had to be redone over and over. If the metal alloy ratio wasn’t right, it just wouldn’t work. There’s no shortcut—just trial after trial. If you only have sensibility, you’ll say, “I want that ethereal light-and-shadow effect.” If you have creative experience, you’ll say, “Metal alloy ratio, temperature control, firing duration.” That experience is bought with scrapped materials.

Julius Zheng: So the loop means—sensibility gives you direction, experience gives you the path, and business gives you the bottom line?

Grace Tang: Exactly. Sensibility is “where to go,” experience is “how to get there,” and business is “staying alive.” Missing any one, and you’ll never reach the destination.

Act Five: Twenty Years—Was It “Worth It”?

Julius Zheng: One last question, back to where we started—if you could choose again today, would you still take on all three of these things yourself?

Grace Tang: (LOL) It’s been incredibly tough. But yes, I would.

Julius Zheng: Why?

Grace Tang: Because high jewelry customization was never meant to be an easy path. Its materials are of high value, its craftsmanship is highly demanding, and its collectors have high expectations. If the person doing this only understands art, that’s called willfulness; only business, that’s called commerce; only craftsmanship, that’s called being an artisan. But what I want is—for a single piece to carry the aesthetic of an era, the thoughts of its creator, and the story of its owner, while standing the test of time.

Julius Zheng: In your mind, then, what kind of person is a collector who can truly engage with you?

Grace Tang: Someone who can see that “it took me twenty years to close this loop.” He won’t just ask, “How much does this weigh? How many carats?” He’ll stand quietly in front of the piece, look at it for a while, and then say—”I see your time.”

Epilogue

As the interview ended, Grace Tang stood up to go check on the Spirit Spider piece.

I asked her, “Is it perfect now?”

She said, “There’s no perfection. But I know it’s closer to what I had in my mind than before.”

It took her twenty years to find her way along this path—and just two seconds to adjust the position of a single piece.

This article was first published by Gem Spectrum. The author is the Editor-in-Chief of Gem Spectrum and a GIA Graduate Gemologist.