Cultus Artem debuts River of Heaven necklace, inspired by Milky Way folklore

A necklace built from 26 diamond charms and Tahitian pearls could be mistaken for a treasure from an old jewelry box until the cuts start giving away the story. Cultus Artem’s River of Heaven debuted at Couture’s Design Atelier in Las Vegas, where the show added 17 new brands to the curated space for up-and-coming designers, and the one-of-a-kind piece carried more than 39 carats of diamonds across its cascading form.

For vintage-minded collectors, the design is a useful puzzle. River of Heaven mixed salt-and-pepper diamonds with marquise, portrait, carré, step, old single and rose cuts, a combination that borrows freely from different eras rather than quoting one period cleanly. The old single and rose cuts nod to antique jewelry language, while the sharper step and carré cuts add a more architectural edge. That contrast matters because it shows how contemporary high jewelry can borrow the feel of a found heirloom without actually being an heirloom.

The pearl work does the same kind of storytelling. Cultus Artem described the necklace as inspired by the folktale of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, the love story that imagines the Milky Way as a bridge formed by magpies. In the necklace, that celestial idea became a stream of salt-and-pepper diamonds moving through silver Tahitian pearls, which the brand’s product copy rendered as silver South Sea pearls. The effect was less literal astronomy than a deliberate echo of the long, graduated necklaces and dramatic drops that vintage buyers often see in older sautoirs and evening jewels.

Holly Tupper, Cultus Artem’s founder and designer, said she has always been fascinated by unusual diamonds and called salt-and-pepper stones a “miniature history lesson.” She said she wanted every stone to be different while still working in harmony, a description that fits a piece built around variation rather than perfection. Cultus Artem also says River of Heaven belongs to its Through Paradox collection, where each 18k-gold piece draws on raw materials from Tupper’s personal collection gathered over three decades.

That provenance story reaches beyond the necklace itself. Cultus Artem was originally established in Singapore in the 1990s, rebranded in the United States in 2015, and is now headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, in a historic Bell Telephone exchange building. The Couture Show’s brand spotlight says Tupper studied art and sculpture at Tulane University, later learned beading and metalsmithing in Singapore, and expanded into jewelry, fragrance, skincare and home goods. For collectors, River of Heaven is a reminder that old cuts alone do not make a jewel antique; construction, proportion and intent do the heavier lifting, and contemporary pieces are increasingly fluent in that older visual grammar.