LOEV Jewelry

LOEV Jewelry is not what most people picture when they hear "goldsmith atelier." It's a Zurich-founded fine jewelry brand, launched in 2022 by Taryn Steinberger and Niels Schaefer, built entirely around lab-grown diamonds and recycled gold, with a small showroom and, as of this year, a genuinely useful second address: a space inside Globus on Bahnhofstrasse itself. For an expat who has never set foot in an appointment-only atelier before, that matters. You can walk in while you're already on the main shopping street, rather than book a slot at an address you've never heard of and hope you find the buzzer.

Worth being upfront about that Globus spot: LOEV's own social channels describe it as a temporary brand installation running through late November, not a permanent boutique. Treat it as a good place to see the pieces and get a feel for the brand while you're passing through Bahnhofstrasse, and use the Zurich showroom for anything that needs a proper sit-down conversation, like starting a custom piece.

That showroom trades as Xania, at Pelikanplatz 15, 8001 Zürich, close to the Bahnhofstrasse end of the old town. Hours are limited compared with a shop that opens daily: Thursday from 12 pm to 6 pm and Saturday from 12 pm to 5 pm, by appointment, which the site frames as booking ahead through its own scheduling page or messaging on WhatsApp. Outside those hours, the general contact line runs Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm CET, on the same phone number, 044 515 22 50, and by email at sales@loevjewelry.com. Everything on the site itself is in English, and nothing on the pages we read states whether German, French, or another language is available in person, so if that matters to you, it's worth confirming when you book.

A custom order at LOEV starts the way most digital-native jewelers start one now: get in touch by phone, email, or video call to talk through what you want, then the studio produces a one-off 3D rendering of the design before its jewelry artisans move to hand-crafting the piece. That's a genuinely different rhythm from an old-world bench atelier, where you might watch a goldsmith sketch by hand at a first sitting. LOEV doesn't say on its site whether you can watch the actual bench work, in either location, so don't assume it; ask when you book if that's important to you. What the brand is specific about is what happens before the render: a real conversation about your idea, not a catalogue browse.

Materials, certification, and what you can check yourself

Where LOEV is unusually forthcoming, for a category where a lot of ateliers keep pricing vague until you're in the room, is on its numbers. Every finished piece, custom or catalogue, carries a CHF price on the site itself, not "price on request": a marquise diamond necklace at CHF 2,300, a heart diamond curb chain at CHF 15,800, a signature LOEV Tennis bracelet starting at CHF 5,800, studs starting from CHF 790. None of that tells you what a bespoke commission will cost, since the site doesn't publish a bespoke price list or minimum, but it does tell you the brand's general price range before you ever book an appointment, which is more than most of the ateliers on this list offer.

The materials story is equally specific. LOEV uses only lab-grown diamonds, which it describes as chemically, physically, and optically identical to mined stones, grown either by a high-pressure high-temperature process the site says has been used to produce industrial diamonds since 1955, or by newer chemical vapor deposition, where the stone builds up layer by layer over several weeks inside a plasma reactor. Stones of 0.5 carat and above come with an independent IGI or GIA certificate; smaller stones carry the supplier's own assurance of F to G color and VS clarity or better. LOEV's own house standard for the diamonds it sets is colorless (D to F) or G-grade with VS or VVS clarity, meaning any inclusion is only visible under 10x magnification. Gold is recycled only, in 18 karat or 14 karat, sourced from old jewelry and electronics and refined back to 99.99 percent purity; the site spells out the difference for anyone who hasn't shopped for a ring before, that carat measures a diamond's weight (1 carat equals 0.2 grams) while karat measures gold purity (18 karat gold is 75 percent gold).

After-sales, if you're only in Zurich a few years

This is where LOEV is more useful to a newcomer than to a lifelong resident. Shipping within Switzerland and the EU is free, prices already include VAT, and LOEV covers EU import duties itself, so a piece bought in Zurich and later posted to family, or to yourself after a move within Europe, won't turn into a surprise customs bill. Made-to-order jewelry takes 3 to 4 weeks; anything already in stock ships within 3 to 5 business days. Returns run on a 14 day window from delivery for Switzerland and the EU, with free return shipping, though anything personalized or engraved is excluded once made, which is standard for custom work anywhere. If a ring needs resizing later, LOEV offers it for up to one size of adjustment, useful if you buy before a big life change rather than after. Engraving itself is free, up to 30 characters, which covers most initials-and-a-date requests.

The brand has also picked up a credential worth knowing about if sustainability claims are part of why you'd choose it: it became a Certified B Corporation in May 2025, according to the B Corp directory, sitting alongside its own site's language about diamonds grown on renewable energy and full transparency of origin. Trade coverage has described co-founder Taryn Steinberger as South African by background with years of experience in the international jewelry trade before starting LOEV, though LOEV's own site doesn't publish either founder's formal training, so take that as color rather than a credential.

The honest caveat here isn't the jewelry, it's the footprint. LOEV is a small operation, by its own B Corp filing between 1 and 9 employees, running two Zurich touchpoints rather than a network of stores, and one of those two is explicitly temporary. That's a real trade-off against an atelier that's occupied the same shopfront for decades. What you get in return is a brand that publishes its prices, its materials, and its policies in plain English before you ever book, which is exactly what a buyer new to Zurich, unfamiliar with what's normal for a Swiss goldsmith, actually needs. For anyone who wants to browse a genuinely custom-capable jeweler while they're already walking Bahnhofstrasse, then book a proper consultation at the Pelikanplatz showroom to talk through a design, LOEV is a straightforward, well-documented place to start.