Designers Show Their Valentine’s Love with Symbolic Jewelry

By Karen Dybis | February 12, 2024

Hearts will always be a Valentine’s Day standard, but the variety of designs that fine jewelry brands use to symbolize love seems infinite—from knots and shields to gemstones that “spell out” loving sentiments and more.

It seems fitting as Valentine’s Day approaches to celebrate some of these heartfelt shapes and stylized words of love. They’re like secretive love notes shared only between the giver and recipient, and there may be nothing more romantic than that.

Designer Serena Van Rensselaer says her LoVe collection honors the power of the word itself. She came up with the design doing stream-of-consciousness sketching, she recalls.

“I was not paying much attention, and I found myself lost in the flow of sketching abstract and organic shapes. As if guided by intuition, the word love emerged,” Van Rensselaer says. “As I stepped back and looked, I was captivated by one of them and instantly envisioned it as a necklace.”

From that initial spark, a cascade of ideas followed, and Van Rensselaer says she is growing the collection to include rings, earrings, and bracelets. She also plans to introduce a new design every few months featuring the word love in another language; her newest piece, Amor, is currently in production.

“Love is an energetic, healing balm that I feel our world truly needs. If we could all always radiate love, imagine the transformative shifts that would happen,” Van Rensselaer says. “I’m grateful for this journey. I humbly hope my collections radiate some love and light into this world.”

Here are some other pieces of jewelry that represent love in distinctive ways—just in time for Valentine’s Day.