We’re always looking for a new way to promote and advertise our handcrafted jewellery for men and we stumbled across this beauty from a few years ago. It features the Navy Wings ring in sterling silver by David Parker. It would have been cool if we had our hand x-rayed whilst wearing the ring, but we must confess that we’ve placed the ring image on top of the hand x-ray so that its looks real. We still think it looks cool. Let us know if you think we should develop more of these images to promote our work on social media.

A lot of our customers ask if we are purely an online store or do we have a brick and mortar store as well. The good news is we have a physical store up on level of Mitchell House in the Melbourne CBD. Mitchell House, corner Lonsdale and Elizabeth Streets, is a heritage listed Art Deco building and is a well-known landmark. As our store is on the top right-hand corner we are bathed in natural light which streams through our steel framed windows. We must admit our view out is special as we overlook one of the oldest churches in Melbourne which means there is a great sense of depth with the view (many other buildings pretty much just look straight into the next buildings windows). If you’re ever in town pop on in and say hi and check our wonderful building and view.

This Swell ring in sterling silver with a Fordite face by Sebastian Cilento has a wonderful story.

Wikipedia states “Fordite, also known as Detroit agate or Motor Agate, is old automobile paint which has hardened sufficiently to be cut and polished. It was formed from the build-up of layers of enamel paint slag on tracks and skids on which cars were hand spray-painted (a now automated process), which have been baked numerous times”

What this means, as cars are no longer painted this way, is that the material is extremely rare and will never be made again. That means each and every one of these rings is a unique, never to be repeated, piece of history and art.

At Lord Coconut we pride ourselves in having a bit of fun as part of your wedding ring purchase decision. When couples come into the store to look for a ring we always have a quick chat to the couple over a glass of bubbles to determine what sort of ring (or rings) they are looking for. This usually leads to many stories on how the couple met, what they are planning for the wedding, what they do for jobs and how they are coping before the big day. This allows us to gently steer them in the right direction ring material wise so that they make the perfect choice. It’s important as they will be wearing the ring a long long time (or forever as one part of the couple is always quick to add). Rest assured our process is designed to make each individual relaxed and comfortable with such an important decision and there is never any hard sell involved. We like our customers to enjoy the stress-free process it should be.

Although we find that men purchase rings for all sorts of reasons there is always one common denominator………………. they always start with just one if they’ve had a secret desire to wear multiple rings. After the first is purchased, often but not always not from us, we find that the initial ring must pass what we call the mate shit test. The shit test is all about whether your mates give you shit or not wearing a fashion ring. If shit is given the ring quietly goes into the draw never to be seen again. If shit is not given it means the wearer is more than likely to purchase a 2nd, 3rd, 4th or even 5th ring (often at the same time). This image is one of our customers who started with the ring on the right pointer. The ring isn’t one of ours, but I know it was purchased in the hope more would follow. He clearly didn’t get any shit from his mates and not long after he came in and purchased another three rings from us. You must admit it’s a pretty good look and a great mix of rings. Working left to right our rings are Classic Skull signet by Ant Hat, Stack by Marko Radosavljevic and finished off with Tiger Eye Fokker signet from Sebastian Cilento.

At Lord Coconut we pride ourselves on the variety of wedding rings which are available in-store and online. These are some of our current favourites from the 100 plus styles and designs we currently have in stock. Working from left to right;

– Gladiator ring in oxidised sterling silver and gold by Marko Radosavljevic

– Gold Strike ring in oxidised sterling silver and gold by Jeanette Dyke

– Main Squeeze ring in bronze and white gold (inner) by Ginkoh Jewellery

– Flat Vertical cut Damascus steel ring by Luke Grant

– Ripples ring in titanium by Emily Becher

– Great Divide ring in oxidised sterling silver, gold and cube cut natural diamond by Gavin Macsporran

– The Port ring in zirconium and gold by Rhett Dale

– Wide Explosion ring by Gillian Hillman

These rings (and more) are all made to measure so that the groom gets the perfect fitting wedding ring every single time.

We’re really proud of the diverse range of jeweller we have in-store and online at any one time. Our customers are pretty cool as well and a big thanks to Jared Acquaro for helping us highlight these amazing stack rings in sterling silver by Metal Couture. The Skull ring and Headphone rings can be worn together or separately. As all of our rings are made to measure it doesn’t matter what size your finger is. If these rings aren’t to your taste don’t worry as we have over 300 different ring designs which have been produced by our 40 plus Australian based jewellers, designers and artisans.

Image courtesy of Jared Acquaro and Jacob Medina

When you represent over 40 Australian based jewellers, designers and artisans there is bound to be a diverse range of wedding rings available for grooms who all have different tastes. One of our favourite designers is Melbourne based jeweller Ali Alexander. She specialises in the lost wax technique whereby each and every one of her wedding rings are first hand formed in wax, sent out to be cast and finally finished by hand to give them their unique look and polish. It’s called the lost wax technique as in the casting process the original wax ring is replaced by the metal version. Thus the wax is lost forever. This String ring in 9ct white gold is extra special as Ali still uses the lost wax technique but with the added twist that a piece of string is dipped in molten wax to form the original ring when wrapped around her jewellers mandrel.

When it came time to deciding how any of our 800 plus pieces of Australian made handcrafted jewellery for men would be presented to our customers upon sale it was very clear that we wanted to do something out of the ordinary and something that fits in with the look and feel of the store. As our store is based upon Natural History Museums of the past the standard jewellery boxes available were out of the question. This led to a bit of brainstorming where we finally decided upon secret holes cut into the inside of vintage books. Not 100% sure where the idea came from but it was probably inspired by our recent prison break where a pick was smuggled into the prison inside a book………………….. oh wait, that was a movie wasn’t it! Maybe it was a piece of art we had seen previously as we were aware of the well known Melbourne based book artist Nicholas Jones. Either way we’ve made our packaging an important part of our entire retail experience and we know we’re on a winner when we get customer feedback such as “arrived on Monday just gone snuggled away in a lovely book” and “love the packaging, great idea. He loves books, so this is perfect”.

Photo courtesy of Boutique Blinks Photography

Welcome to the world of Lord Coconut – Melbourne’s only retail store specialising in handcrafted jewellery for men. Our 40 plus jewellers, designers and artisans are all based within Australia which means each and every item is Australian made. This is the man behind the brand. He doesn’t like photos but we trot out the odd image every now and then to remind everyone that we aren’t some big faceless corporation but a small business selling the wonderful work of locals.

Image courtesy of Prince & Mercer /Grace Petrou