Whois & Analysis for astleyclarke.com

A gemstone (also called a gem, fine gem, jewel, precious stone or semi-precious stone) is a piece of mineral crystal which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments.

However, certain rocks (such as lapis lazuli) or organic materials that are not minerals (such as amber, jet, and pearl) are also used for jewelry and are therefore often considered to be gemstones as well.

Most gemstones are hard, but some soft minerals are used in jewelry because of their luster or other physical properties that have aesthetic value.

Rarity is another characteristic that lends value to a gemstone.

Apart from jewelry, from earliest antiquity engraved gems and hardstone carvings, such as cups, were major luxury art forms.

A gem maker is called a lapidary or gemcutter; a diamond worker is a diamantaire.

Jewellery or jewelry consists of small decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.

Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes, and the term is restricted to durable ornaments, excluding flowers for example.

For many centuries metal, often combined with gemstones, has been the normal material for jewellery, but other materials such as shells and other plant materials may be used.

It is one of the oldest type of archaeological artefact – with 100,000-year-old beads made from Nassarius shells thought to be the oldest known jewellery.

The basic forms of jewellery vary between cultures but are often extremely long-lived; in European cultures the most common forms of jewellery listed above have persisted since ancient times, while other forms such as adornments for the nose or ankle, important in other cultures, are much less common.

Historically, the most widespread influence on jewellery in terms of design and style have come from Asia.

Diamond (or) is a metastable allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice.

Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at standard conditions.

Diamond is renowned as a material with superlative physical qualities, most of which originate from the strong covalent bonding between its atoms.

In particular, diamond has the highest hardness and thermal conductivity of any bulk material.

Those properties determine the major industrial application of diamond in cutting and polishing tools and the scientific applications in diamond knives and diamond anvil cells.

Astley Clarke is a British jewellery brand that was founded in London in 2006 by Bec Astley Clarke.

Astley Clarke started as an online retailer, selling international jewellery designers such as Carolina Bucci, Pippa Small, Shaun Leane, Katie Hillier and Alex Monroe.

In 2009 Astley Clarke started designing their own jewellery, after employing a creative director.

In 2014 Astley Clarke changed from being a jewellery retailer to a jewellery brand, selling only jewellery which they design in their London Studio.

Astley Clarke is known for their use of coloured gemstones, coloured Noble metal and diamonds.

In 2013 Astley Clarke’s founder, Bec Astley Clarke, was awarded an MBE for services to the jewellery industry.

Color (American English) or colour (Commonwealth English) is the characteristic of human visual perception described through color categories, with names such as red, yellow, purple, or blue.

This perception of color derives from the stimulation of cone cells in the human eye by electromagnetic radiation in the spectrum of light.

Color categories and physical specifications of color are associated with objects through the wavelength of the light that is reflected from them.

This reflection is governed by the object's physical properties such as light absorption, emission spectra, etc.