Michelle Midyette is an award-winning jewelry designer and G.I.A. Graduate Gemologist. In 2005, she launched her professional career by designing a number of highly prized fine jewelry lines, including JudeFrances Jewelry and Zasha Jewelry, for whom she still serves as the Head Designer. She currently designs for ten international fine jewelry brands, including the up and coming ‘bamboopink’ direct sales lines. She brings all of her extensive industry and gemstone knowledge to her Dallas custom jewelry clients, creating an intuitive process that enables them to create the very best pieces.
“Custom jewelry, like any art, should be deeply personal. It should be a manifestation of one’s own unique style, and it should be designed with an intense attention to detail that reflects an intimate and exclusive relationship to the wearer.”
To date, Michelle has worked with over 20 different companies and countless individuals creating innovative jewelry that runs the gamut from stunning one-of-a-kind pieces to affordable silver and precious gem lines that are sold globally. Although she has designed hundreds of pieces that are available in the marketplace today, she views her custom work for private clients to be among the most rewarding. Those details drive Michelle to take every custom project to a new level.
“I’ve done everything from working initials and names into the gallery work of a ring, to inscribing jokes onto the backs of cuff links. I also adore transforming an out-of-date heirloom piece into something more timely that you will love wearing every day of the year.”
Whether it’s turning your grandmother’s delicate rings into a diamond locket with her initials worked into the back, revamping your solitaire wedding ring into something with more presence, or even creating a matching piece to an old favorite ~ Michelle designs everything by hand. Clients are involved throughout every stage of the process, from initial sketches and watercolor renderings, to production and stone choices. She uses only local goldsmiths of the finest caliber so that she can personally oversee production down to the last finish.
Originally from Texas, Michelle graduated from The Hockaday School and The University of Texas at Austin with a Studio/Fine Arts degree, before working in fundraising and event planning for The Santa Fe Opera and the Metropolitan Opera of New York. She left her first career to become a jewelry designer in 2005. The daughter of computer and engineering entrepreneur Bob Midyette and the accomplished watercolorist and intaglio printmaker Vicki Midyette, she currently resides in the heart of downtown Dallas, and travels whenever and wherever she can.