Goldschmiede Felicia Wettstein

Felicia Wettstein runs her own goldsmith workshop under her own name at Bleicherweg 10 in Zürich, registered as Goldschmiede Felicia Wettstein GmbH. She opened it on the 1st of February 2022, after meeting a goldsmith named Maja Lüdi and taking over her atelier in the city. It is a solo operation in the sense that matters most for a commission: the name on the door and the hands on the bench belong to the same person. Before Zürich, Wettstein spent 7 years living and working in Belgium, where she trained as a certified jeweller and goldsmith and studied design, drawing, gemmology and metalwork. Back in Switzerland, she spent 2018 to 2021 in a joint workshop with fellow goldsmith Raphael Meyer in Zug, before the move to Zürich. Meyer now runs his own shop in Zug, separately, so an occasional line on Wettstein's own site still describing her work as based "in Zug" is a leftover from before 2022, not a sign she has moved back. It is a small, telling detail: a business old enough to have outgrown one workshop and settled into a second, rather than a site thrown up last year with nothing behind it.

What you get splits into two halves that Wettstein's own site treats as equally important, which is unusual for this category. One half is new commissions: rings, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, wedding jewellery, and a heraldic line built around crest rings that take a family coat of arms and turn it into a wearable piece, a strong option for anyone who wants to fold old family symbolism into a new engagement ring. The other half, pitched on the homepage with nearly the same weight as the rings, is repair and restoration. Wettstein calls it "Refresh and Redesign" and describes it as running from a simple cleaning up to a complete restoration, aimed at people who already own a piece rather than only people starting from a blank page. For a reader who has just landed in Zürich with a ring from home that needs resizing, or a grandmother's stone that needs a new setting, that is worth knowing before looking at ateliers built purely around from-scratch commissions.

On materials, the site is more specific than a plain promise of quality. Wettstein states that she personally sources and selects the precious materials she works with, and that the diamonds she uses are certified either through the Gemmological Institute of America or through the Diamond High Council of Antwerp, the body known in the trade as HRD. That is a concrete, checkable standard rather than a vague claim, and it matters to a buyer who will eventually want the stone appraised or insured without arguing over paperwork.

Price transparency is where Wettstein stands out most for this readership. Most bespoke goldsmiths in Zürich keep pricing off their websites entirely and push every visitor toward a consultation before naming a figure. Wettstein's site runs a public shop of 27 finished ring designs with prices attached in Swiss francs, from a plain sapphire band listed at CHF 135 up to a diamond pavé design at CHF 19800, with a heraldic crest ring at CHF 7500 sitting well inside that range. None of this tells a reader what a fully custom commission built from scratch will cost, and the site does not publish a starting price for that kind of work, so treat these as reference points rather than a quote. Still, seeing real prices on real finished pieces gives a newcomer to Zürich a far better sense of the shop's level than the silence most competitors keep.

How to reach her

The contact page lists opening hours of Tuesday to Friday, 10:00 to 18:00, and Saturday, 10:00 to 16:00, closed on Sunday and Monday. A separate listing for the business on the directory site local.ch marks those hours as by appointment rather than a walk-in counter, which fits a workshop that also has bench work to get through during the day. There is a phone number and an email address on the contact page, but no online booking calendar, so the first step for anyone new to the city is a call or an email rather than a self-service form. The site does not spell out what a first meeting covers step by step, so the appointment itself, not the homepage, is where you will get a real read on lead time and process for your own piece. Nothing on the site claims you can watch your ring being made at the bench, though her About page carries a short embedded video showing her in the workshop rather than only in product photography, a small but genuine signal that the making happens on site.

The site itself is not without rough edges. Alongside the workshop information sit a few leftover ecommerce template touches, a dollar-denominated free-shipping banner and a "24/7 support" line that plainly do not apply to a Swiss goldsmith taking appointments by phone. The About page's team section still lists Raphael Meyer as a goldsmith alongside two names that read as unedited template placeholders. None of that changes what is actually on offer, but it does mean the site is a better source for facts about training, certification and services than for a polished first impression, and a prospective client should expect the real thing to read stronger in person than it does on the page.

How it compares

Against the many other independent goldsmith workshops this directory tracks in Zürich, two things put Wettstein in a specific spot rather than the general one. First is the repair and restoration side sitting level with new commissions instead of trailing behind it as an afterthought, which suits a reader who already owns a piece more than one who wants a from-scratch design. Second is that public price list: 27 named ring designs with figures attached is not nothing when the norm elsewhere is a contact form and a promise to follow up. The heraldic crest line is also a genuine point of difference. Most bespoke ateliers in the city will make a custom family piece if asked, but Wettstein has turned it into an actual named collection on her site, which suggests it is a routine part of her work rather than something she would have to work out from a standing start.

Who it suits

This is a strong pick for anyone who has arrived in Zürich with an heirloom stone, a ring that needs resizing, or a piece that needs resetting rather than a design in progress. It also suits a buyer who wants a named, checkable diamond certification standard instead of a vague quality promise, and anyone comfortable booking by phone or email rather than through an app. If a family crest or coat of arms matters to you, the heraldic line is a genuine reason to call here first rather than asking a generalist atelier to improvise one.

The verdict

Wettstein earns her place in this category less on decades in business, she has been independent at this address only since 2022, and more on how much she is willing to put in front of a stranger before that stranger ever calls: real prices in francs, a named diamond certification standard, and a repair and restoration service treated as core business rather than a courtesy. Book by phone or email, expect to settle commission pricing and lead time in that first conversation rather than on the site, and if you already own a stone or a piece rather than starting from zero, she is one of the more directly useful calls to make in this category.