The Maison a gemologist built.

Maison Kastel is the work of a single hand. Every stone is selected by its founder, and no piece leaves the atelier without her approval.

Maria Paschalis, founder and gemologist of Maison Kastel

Maria Paschalis — Founder & Gemologist

The Founder

Maria Paschalis

Maria Paschalis is a gemologist by training and a designer by consequence. Years spent in the study of stones preceded the first piece she ever set, and that discipline remains the Maison’s first filter: colour, cut, clarity, and the more demanding question of whether a stone merits its setting at all.

She works from Chicago, travels to the cutters, and acquires in small parcels. Where a stone is exceptional, the design is composed around it rather than the reverse — the reason so many Maison Kastel pieces exist only once.

It is a deliberate way to build a house of fine jewelry. It is the only way she has been willing to build one.

The practice of the Maison

Four principles, unchanged.

The stone

Selected before it is designed

Every stone is chosen by a gemologist rather than a buying office. Each parcel is examined and sorted by hand, and the greater part of it is declined. What enters a collection has survived that first, unsentimental assessment.

The bench

Fabricated by hand, in 14k and 18k gold

Each piece is hand-fabricated, hand-set, and finished by artisans known personally to the Maison. No casting shortcuts, and nothing approved that has not been examined under magnification.

The numbers

Short series. Frequently singular.

Collections are produced in limited series rather than open production. Certain pieces, the tableaux and the stone-led designs in particular, are made once and, once placed, are not repeated.

The room

Presented in person

Fine jewelry is understood on the hand. The Maison travels to trunk shows and receives clients by private appointment, so that a piece is first encountered in the room rather than on a screen.

Forty pieces we can account for, rather than four hundred we cannot.

The rule of the Maison

The Collections

Each begins with a place.

Sea & Sky

Aegean & Seaborne

Greek waters and their inhabitants — the seahorse, the koi, the scallop, the starfish — rendered in gold, with coloured stones set as detail rather than ornament.

Every Day

Essentials

The pieces intended to be worn together, and worn continually. Layerable chains, diamond line work, and the quiet gold that carries the rest.

Garden & Night

Garden Party & Asteri

Botanical settings and celestial forms. The two collections in which colour and light are permitted to be the subject.

Discover

View the collections.

CollectionAegean CollectionEssentials CollectionSeaborne CollectionGarden Party

By appointment

Book a private viewing.

Indicate the pieces that interest you and the Maison will arrange a time, in Chicago or at a forthcoming trunk show.