Nashville Designer Brooke Griffith Reimagines Heirloom Jewelry With Glen & Effie

There is a diamond brooch sitting in a drawer somewhere, wrapped in tissue paper, untouched since a funeral. Brooke Griffith wants to find it. The Nashville-based designer and founder of Glen & Effie has spent more than a decade building a practice around exactly that kind of stone: inherited, overlooked, full of history, and waiting for someone to give it a reason to be worn again.

"Still, my favorite part of this business is taking something like Grandma's diamond brooch that's been shoved in a drawer, taking it apart, and resetting it so it feels fresh and wearable today," Griffith told StyleBlueprint. "Giving it a new life."

That philosophy sits at the center of everything Glen & Effie makes, and it raises a question the brand has made its own: this is not your grandmother's jewelry. Or is it?

Rooted in Legacy, Named After It

Glen & Effie was founded in 2013, and the name is not a creative invention. It belongs to Brooke Griffith's grandparents, the people whose farm in East Tennessee shaped her childhood and whose values, quiet craftsmanship, intentional living, enduring design, became the foundation of the brand. "We believe everyone has their own Glen and Effie," the brand's own copy reads, "those whose stories shape us, and whose legacy we carry forward in the things we make and keep."

That upbringing is not incidental to the work. Griffith trained in design and art history, and she brings what the brand describes as "a studied yet instinctive eye" to her pieces. But the emotional grammar of Glen & Effie, its reverence for inherited objects, its insistence that old things deserve a present tense, runs directly back to those Tennessee fields. The brand began as a practice in reworking vintage and antique treasures, and it has since evolved toward a focused signature fine jewelry collection. The throughline, across both phases, is the belief that a piece of jewelry should be designed to be passed on.

The Studio Practice: What Reworking Actually Means

Griffith's process starts with the stone, not the setting. She works with reclaimed gems and antique settings, sourcing pieces that already carry history and then making deliberate decisions about what they could become. A brooch becomes a ring. An old cluster piece yields a single stone worth centering in something new. The setting is built around what the gem demands, not the other way around.

The aesthetic result is not precious in the delicate sense. Griffith is clear about this. When asked how she balances a modern feel with antique materials, she described the tension plainly: "That's always been the line we've walked. Very vintage and antique, but mixed with bold, unique elements, not thin or minimalist."

That distinction matters. Glen & Effie is not operating in the same register as the current wave of hair-fine gold stacking rings or barely-there pendants. The pieces have weight, both literal and conceptual. The brand's design language leans toward what Griffith has called "Roman-esque" forms, structured silhouettes informed by historical architecture and ornament. Her signature collection began with hand-drawn sketches, and its lookbook drew inspiration from real-life flora heirlooms. The visual references are organic and antique simultaneously: a still life of white flowers in a silver pitcher, a striped tomato, a small brown box, heirloom pieces arranged as though pulled from a grandmother's sideboard and seen freshly.

On Diamonds: The Fifth C

One of the more useful things Griffith does for buyers navigating the antique market is challenge the conventional framework for evaluating diamonds. The standard four Cs, cut, color, clarity, and carat, are taught as a complete system. Griffith argues they leave something out.

"One of the biggest misconceptions is that everything needs to be perfect, especially the four C's in selecting diamonds," she said. "I always talk about the fifth C: compromise. You can compromise on color or carat, but you should never compromise on cut."

This is practically sound advice, and it has particular relevance when shopping antique stones. An old mine cut diamond from the 1800s will rarely meet modern colorimetric standards. Its facets were not polished by machine. But the cut, the proportion and geometry of how light moves through the stone, determines whether a diamond is alive or inert, and that quality does not age out.

Griffith describes antique diamonds with the kind of specificity that makes you want to handle one: "Antique diamonds, especially old mine cuts from the 1800s, are like snowflakes. They often carry more carat weight because of their irregular shape. Imagine: they were originally hand-cut by candlelight with magnifying glasses. That's where the romance and beauty really come from."

The irregular shapes of old mine cuts mean they often carry more mass than their measurements suggest on paper. A stone that grades lower on modern color scales may have a warmth and depth, especially in candlelight, that a contemporary brilliant-cut equivalent simply does not. Griffith's framing of compromise is not a concession. It is a reorientation toward what actually makes an antique stone worth wearing.

A Note on Provenance and Transparency

For readers who care about sourcing, and given the current state of the fine jewelry industry, there are good reasons to, Glen & Effie's model of working with reclaimed and antique gems is inherently less fraught than brands sourcing newly mined stones. A stone that already exists does not require new extraction. It does not carry the same risks of conflict origin or environmental disruption associated with contemporary mining.

That said, the brand has not published detailed provenance documentation or third-party certification information in the materials available. Griffith's focus on community and legacy extends to a giving initiative rooted in her East Tennessee background, one she describes as creating "pathways to education, opportunity, and lasting growth for the next generation." The specifics of that program, its partners, scope, and measurable reach, have not been detailed publicly. Buyers with questions about the initiative or about gem provenance documentation would be well served to ask directly before purchasing.

The Design Philosophy in Full

What distinguishes Glen & Effie from both the vintage resale market and the broader fine jewelry landscape is the insistence on intention. Each piece is bespoke. Each begins with reverence for the past, Griffith's phrase, and arrives in the present ready to function as contemporary jewelry rather than a museum artifact.

The contrasts she works with, femininity and form, softness and structure, bold settings and ancient stones, are not contradictions. They are the conditions under which heirloom jewelry becomes wearable again. A brooch from 1890 does not need to be preserved behind glass. It needs a designer willing to ask what it could become if someone were brave enough to take it apart.

Griffith has been asking that question since 2013. The answer, consistently, is something you'd want to wear today and leave to someone you love.