Michele Froidevaux Schmuck Werkstatt

Michèle Froidevaux runs a one-person goldsmith's workshop on Heinrichstrasse 109, in the Industriequartier a few steps from the Quellenstrasse tram stop on lines 17, 50 and 51. She trained as a goldsmith to the Swiss federal certificate (Goldschmiedin EFZ), holds a jewellery design diploma from the Ecole d'Arts Appliqués in La Chaux-de-Fonds, and is also a trained gemstone setter. Alongside the bench work she teaches jewellery design, gem-setting and pearl-stringing courses through Migros Klubschule Zürich, listed there as CAS Schmuck, Schmuck gestalten, and Perlen und Edelsteine Knüpfen.

That teaching side matters for how to read this listing: this is a working goldsmith who splits her time between her own bench and a classroom, not a shop with a till and fixed opening hours. Her own site describes the current schedule as "Sommerbetrieb," meaning irregular hours through the season, and asks anyone who wants to speak with her in person to arrange an appointment first. There is no walk-in showroom to browse on spec.

What you get

Everything she makes sits under one label across the site: "Sonderanfertigungen" and "Uniquas," meaning custom commissions and one-off pieces. Her portrait page spells out the actual services on offer: individual custom jewellery ("individuelle Schmuckanfertigung"), reworking older pieces, repairs, restringing and knotting pearl and gemstone necklaces, and setting stones a client already owns. None of that is bridal-specific wording. It reads as the general menu of a working goldsmith who makes whatever a client asks for, one piece at a time, rather than a shop built around a single product line.

Her online portfolio backs that up. The gallery is organised into 9 style groups: Sertis (stone-set pieces), Fleurs, Bagues, Solitaires, Boucles, Alliances, Colliers, Orbitales, and Pendentifs, one of which is built around a tsavorite. Nothing about the site is flashy: it is a straightforward image gallery, plainly organised by the kind of piece rather than by occasion.

Rings, wedding bands and what the site doesn't say

This is where a prospective engagement-ring or wedding-ring buyer should actually look, because the portfolio tells a clearer story than the site's own text does. The Alliances gallery, the term used across the French and Swiss trade for wedding bands, shows a run of real finished designs: a triple-band ring, a two-tone ring mixing a polished and a matte finish, a matched pair made as a set for two people, a four-section band, and an organically shaped band. The Solitaires gallery shows 8 pieces, including a classic single-stone solitaire setting, a second solitaire variant, an arched band, a ring mixing white and rose gold, an amethyst ring and a rose-toned ring, alongside two friendship-ring designs, so that gallery is not exclusively bridal either.

Put together, this is real, photographed evidence that wedding-band and solitaire-style ring work sits inside her normal output, even though her site never once uses the words Verlobungsring (engagement ring) or Trauring (wedding ring), and does not run a page framing bridal work as a specialty the way some other workshops in this category do. A search of Swiss trade coverage did not turn up anything that contradicts this either way. A Gold'Or profile of her, Gold'Or being a Swiss jewellery and watchmaking trade magazine, describes a goldsmith who works across styles and materials and does not mention bridal work as a focus. A more recent piece from October 2025 reports that she has taken over running the design half of the Swiss Goldsmiths' Championship, a national competition for apprentices in their fourth training year, while Daniel Gut continues to run the technical half, which was heading into its 20th year. The design category alone awards three prizes worth between 1,000 and 4,000 Swiss francs. None of that is about rings specifically, but it does show a goldsmith with real standing in the trade beyond her own storefront, which is worth knowing before you write her off as untested.

What the site does not do is put a number on any of this for a buyer. There is no published price list, no stated lead time for a commission, and no page describing what a consultation for a ring actually involves. If you want an engagement ring or a wedding band made here, the honest starting point is to say so directly when you get in touch, rather than assume it is a service she advertises, because nothing on the site currently confirms or rules that out beyond what her own portfolio already shows.

Reaching the workshop

Froidevaux can be reached by mobile at +41 78 724 80 24 or by email, and correspondence goes to a separate postal address on Röntgenstrasse 45, also in the 8005 postcode, rather than the workshop itself. Course enquiries are handled separately, through Migros Klubschule Zürich rather than her own line. For an expat buyer, the practical read is straightforward: this is not an English-language storefront (the site runs in German, with French labels for the jewellery categories), and there is no indication anywhere of shipping, export paperwork or duty handling, because this reads as a workshop that expects a visit, not a webshop built to send a finished ring abroad. That suits someone actually based in Zürich who can commit to an appointment far better than someone hoping to commission a ring remotely before arriving.

A search for any sign the business has closed, changed hands or moved turned up nothing: current directory listings still show the same Heinrichstrasse address and mobile number as her own site, and the October 2025 trade-press piece about her new role in the Swiss Goldsmiths' Championship is recent enough to confirm she is still active in the trade, not just still hosting an old page.

Who it suits

This workshop suits a couple who already knows they want a handmade, one-off ring rather than a stock setting, and who is comfortable starting that conversation without a price list or a dedicated bridal page to lean on first. It is a good fit if you want to deal with the same goldsmith who will actually make the piece, rather than a salesperson relaying your brief to a workshop elsewhere. It suits someone with enough German, or French, given the gallery labels, to have that first conversation, or someone willing to bring a German-speaking friend to the appointment. It is a weaker fit for a newcomer who wants English-language service confirmed in advance, a same-day browse of finished engagement rings, or firm numbers on price and turnaround before they have even spoken to her.

The verdict

Froidevaux is a genuinely qualified, independently working goldsmith with real wedding-band and solitaire-ring pieces in her own portfolio, and enough standing in the Swiss trade to now help run a national apprentice competition. That is a solid basis for an engagement or wedding ring commission, even if her own site undersells it by never naming bridal work directly. The one real caveat, and it is a minor one, is that a newcomer to Zürich gets none of the reassurance a dedicated bridal page would offer: no price range, no timeline, no explicit yes to "will you make an engagement ring." Ask that question plainly when you reach out, and treat what her gallery already shows, rather than her homepage copy, as the better evidence of what she can actually do.