There’s something strange about seeing the word best next to your name. Especially when you work in an industry where “best” is almost impossible to define. The best diamond isn’t necessarily the biggest one. The best engagement ring isn’t the one with the highest price tag. And the best piece of jewelry, at least in my opinion, is rarely the one everyone else wants. It’s the one that feels right for the person wearing it. So when Hannah Florman Fine Jewelry was named Best of Boston Jewelry Designer by Boston Magazine, I found myself thinking less about the word best and more about how we got here in the first place. Because we didn’t get here by trying to be everything to everyone.
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When I started HF, I knew I wanted the experience of buying fine jewelry to feel different.
Jewelry is inherently personal, but somewhere along the way, shopping for it became strangely impersonal. You walk into a store, look into a case, choose between what’s already there, and hope one of those pieces feels like you.
I wanted to flip that experience around.
Instead of starting with the jewelry, we start with the person.
What do you actually wear? What do you love? What do you hate? Do you want something classic? A little weird? Something no one else will notice is different except you?
Sometimes that conversation ends with us sourcing diamonds from around the world and designing an engagement ring completely from scratch. Sometimes it means taking apart a family heirloom and figuring out how to preserve everything meaningful about it while making it something someone actually wants to wear.
And sometimes it means sitting at The Brownstone trying on jewelry until something just clicks.
There isn’t really a formula for it.
That’s kind of the point.
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Being named Best of Boston feels especially meaningful because this business grew up here.
Boston can be a funny city when it comes to style. There’s an appreciation for tradition, but also a desire to make that tradition your own.
I think that’s part of why HF has found its place here.
We love an antique diamond in a modern setting. We love taking something inherited and making it wearable again. We love a classic solitaire—and we also love changing one tiny detail that makes it feel completely different.
There is history here, but there’s personality too.
And over the years, Boston has trusted us with a lot.
We’ve made the rings that went into pockets before proposals. We’ve reset diamonds that belonged to grandmothers and great-grandmothers. We’ve made wedding bands, anniversary gifts, push presents, birthday presents, and plenty of pieces with absolutely no occasion attached to them.
The jewelry is what we make, but those stories are what have actually built HF.
Not really.
I still care an unreasonable amount about prongs.
We will still call in more diamonds than necessary because I want to see that one next to the other one.
We will still debate tiny design details that most people would probably never notice.
And I will still believe that “almost right” is not the same thing as right.
If anything, being named Best of Boston feels less like a finish line and more like reassurance that there is value in doing things this way.
Slowly. Personally. Obsessively, at times.
We’ve never wanted HF to feel like a traditional jewelry store. We wanted it to feel like having a jeweler—someone you can come back to as life changes and your jewelry box changes with it.
That’s still what we’re building.
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