For interviews, expert commentary, or image requests, email kate@katerosefinejewelry.com. I answer quickly and I'm comfortable on deadline.

Bios

Short — 50 words

Kate Price is the founder and designer of Kate Rose Fine Jewelry, a Santa Monica studio that rebuilds inherited jewelry into pieces people actually wear. A former high school teacher, she started the business after inheriting jewelry she couldn't wear and finding no one willing to design around her life.

Medium — 100 words

Kate Price is the founder and designer of Kate Rose Fine Jewelry, a one-woman Santa Monica studio specializing in heirloom redesign — taking inherited and unworn jewelry apart and rebuilding it into pieces made for daily wear.

She spent twenty years as a high school teacher, most of them teaching psychology in Los Angeles, before starting the studio in 2019. The work began after she inherited jewelry she loved and couldn't wear, and found that local jewelers would drop her stones into stock settings while designers would impose their own aesthetic. Nobody asked about the person the jewelry came from.

She works directly with every client, from first conversation to delivery.

Long — 250 words

Kate Price is the founder and designer of Kate Rose Fine Jewelry, a Santa Monica studio built around a single idea: jewelry should be worn, not stored.

Kate spent twenty years in classrooms — first at her own high school outside Detroit, then in a low-income Chicago school, then eleven years teaching psychology and AP Psychology in Los Angeles. She holds a degree in political science and secondary education from the University of Michigan.

The studio began with her own inheritance. She had pieces she loved and couldn't wear, and no good options: local jewelry stores wanted to drop her stones into stock settings, and high-end designers would take her stones and her money and hand back their own aesthetic. Nobody would listen to the story and design for the life she actually lived. She pieced a necklace together herself, working with different makers. People asked about it. She started helping friends with their inherited jewelry. It grew from there.

Today she works with clients across the country, many of them remotely, rebuilding heirloom pieces into everyday jewelry. She takes a limited number of projects each month and handles every one personally — the first phone call, the design, the photographs from the bench, the box that arrives at the door.

She approaches the work the way she approached teaching: people need to know you care before they'll trust you with anything that matters.

Kate lives in Los Angeles with her husband, their son, and two dogs.

Fast facts

• Studio: Kate Rose Fine Jewelry, also known as Kate Rose Modern Heirlooms
• Founded: 2019, Santa Monica, California
• Founder and designer: Kate Price
• Specialty: Heirloom redesign — inherited and unworn jewelry rebuilt for daily wear
• Also offers: Custom design, engagement rings, estate transformation
• How it works: Private, appointment-only. Many clients work remotely by video and insured mail.
• Typical project: $1,500–$3,500; larger estate projects go higher
• Timeline: About eight weeks from approved design
• Materials: Existing stones and metals repurposed wherever possible

Quotes cleared for use

A ring in a safe deposit box isn't an heirloom. It's an asset. An heirloom is something you put on.

My job isn't to preserve the setting. It's to preserve the person.

The new status symbol in jewelry isn't size. It's story.

Same stones, new story.

Story angles I can speak to

• Why heirloom redesign is growing. What's driving people to rebuild inherited jewelry instead of selling it or leaving it in a drawer.
• The sustainability case. Repurposing stones and metal already above ground, and what that actually saves versus what it's marketed as saving.
• What to do with jewelry you inherited and can't wear. Practical guidance — what's worth keeping, what to have appraised, what questions to ask a jeweler.
• Buying an engagement ring without a showroom. How custom and remote design changed the process.
• Leaving teaching to build a business. Twenty years in classrooms, and what transferred.
• Running a one-person studio. Pricing, capacity, and saying no — for trade and small-business audiences.

Images

High-resolution photography of finished work, before-and-after redesigns, and studio portraits are available on request. Client pieces are shared with permission; some projects can't be photographed for publication, and I'll tell you which ones.

Please credit Kate Rose Fine Jewelry.

Contact

Kate Price
kate@katerosefinejewelry.com
katerosefinejewelry.com