I Do (Not)!

Many women are overcoming the stigma around divorce, using repurposed rings and wedding gowns to challenge archaic notions that hold them back.

- PRAACHI RANIWALA

There’s a scene in the season 2 premiere of popular television show And Just Like That where Carrie Bradshaw pulls out the Vivienne Westwood wedding dress she wore when Mr Big left her at the altar, and wears it again it to the Met Gala many years later. “And just like that, I repurposed my pain,” she says of it.

It seems that many real-life women are now singing in Bradshaw’s tune. Take for instance, model Emily Ratajkowski, who sent the internet in a tizzy when she coined the term “divorce rings” with a post on Instagram this March. Following her split with her husband Sebastian Bear-McClard, Ratajkowski worked with jewellery designer Alison Chemla—founder and creative director of the brand Alison Lou who designed her famous Toi et Moi engagement ring—to remodel it. She got it remade into two separate pieces: a pear-shaped solitaire pinky ring, and a princess-cut diamond flanked by trapezoid stones. “I would like there to be a perspective that allows space for the fact that leaving a relationship is often a remarkable and brave act. I really would like to see single moms or women starting over for the first time in a terrific way—find some kind of solace in the idea that they’re not failures for leaving,” Ratajkowski had told The New York Times.