Daily Inspiration: Meet Shant Dakessian

Today we’d like to introduce you to Shant Dakessian.

Hi Shant, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Our story really begins with my parents, Simone and Jasmine, and the risks they were willing to take to build a better life for our family.

My parents left Beirut in 1975 when the war broke out. I was born shortly afterward in France, and not long after that, they made the decision to come to the United States. My father saw America as a place where, with hard work, he could build something of his own.

In 1978, my parents opened Simone & Son Jewelers in Southern California. From the beginning, they complemented each other perfectly. My mom, Jasmine, had an incredible ability to visualize and hand-sketch jewelry, while my dad, Simone, had the technical craftsmanship to take those ideas and bring them to life. Long before “custom” became the buzzword it is today, they were already creating jewelry specifically around the individual client.

I essentially grew up in the jewelry store. Some of my earliest memories are of being around the workshop, gemstones, drawings, tools, and customers. I watched my parents create pieces that became part of some of the most important moments in people’s lives—engagements, weddings, anniversaries, births, and family milestones. Without realizing it at the time, I was learning not only how jewelry was made, but what jewelry meant to people. As I got older, I wanted to understand the industry for myself rather than simply inherit a position in the family business. I studied gemology and became a Graduate Gemologist through GIA, but I was equally fascinated by where technology could take traditional jewelry making.

That became a major part of my role at Simone & Son. My parents gave me the foundation of old-world craftsmanship, but I became passionate about integrating technology such as 3D CAD design, modeling, prototyping, and modern manufacturing into that process. It allowed us to take something that might begin as a conversation or a sketch and let the client actually see and participate in the evolution of their piece before it was ever made.

Over the years, we built Simone & Son into much more than a traditional retail jewelry store. We developed a full in-house design and manufacturing operation where our designers, jewelers, stone setters, and gemologists work together under one roof. We can take a project from an idea to a CAD model, to a prototype, to setting the final stone and finishing the piece—all within our own workshop.

But as much as the technology and the business have evolved, I think the reason we’ve been able to continue for nearly five decades is that the philosophy hasn’t really changed.

We’re still a family business creating jewelry for other families.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I think one of the biggest misconceptions about an established family business is that each generation simply inherits what the previous one built. In reality, you inherit the responsibility of making sure it continues to deserve its place.

For me, one of the biggest challenges has been learning how to move Simone & Son forward without losing the qualities that made people trust my parents in the first place. The way people buy jewelry has changed dramatically. Technology has changed, diamonds have changed, marketing has changed, and clients have access to more information and more choices than ever before. We’ve had to constantly adapt while being very careful not to sacrifice craftsmanship or the personal experience our business was built around.

I believe everything we´ve been through has also changed the way I lead. It made me understand that preserving a legacy doesn’t mean keeping everything exactly the same. It means understanding the values behind what was built and finding new ways to protect those values as the world changes around you.

We’ve made mistakes, we’ve had to adjust and improve, and we’ve learned a lot along the way. But I think that’s also why Simone & Son is still here after all these years. We’ve never assumed that our history guarantees our future. We still feel like we have to earn our clients’ trust every single day.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
At the core, we’re designers, jewelers, and storytellers. We specialize in custom jewelry, whether that’s an engagement ring, a wedding band, a completely one-of-a-kind piece, or taking jewelry someone already owns and giving it a new life.

A huge part of who we are creatively comes from my mom, Jasmine. She’s an artist in the truest sense of the word. She has this incredible ability to sit with someone, listen to their story, and start sketching by hand. Sometimes the client doesn’t even know exactly what they want yet, but somehow she can pull it out of them and put it onto paper. I’ve watched her do that my entire life, and it still amazes me.

Her designs have a very organic quality to them because she isn’t starting with a computer or thinking about how something has been done before. She’s thinking about proportion, movement, balance, the stones, and most importantly, the person who is going to wear it. There’s an emotion behind the way she designs that you really can’t replicate with technology.

My role often comes in from a different direction. I’m a jeweler and a gemologist, and I’ve always been fascinated by the technical side of the craft and by what technology can allow us to do. So there’s this really interesting relationship between the way my mom creates and the way I work. She may begin with a hand-drawn concept, and then we can take that idea into CAD, engineer it, refine the proportions, prototype it, select the stones, and ultimately manufacture the finished piece through our team.

I think that combination of art and technology has become a big part of our identity.

At the same time, technology is only a tool. We never want a piece to feel like it came out of a computer. It still needs to have a human element to it. It needs to feel considered and personal.

That’s also why redesigning heirloom jewelry is something we really enjoy. Someone may bring us their grandmother’s ring, their mother’s diamond, or several pieces they haven’t worn in years. There’s already a story there, so our job isn’t to erase it. It’s to understand what matters about those pieces and find a way to carry that meaning into something the client is excited to wear today.

What I’m most proud of is probably the trust that comes with doing this for so long. We’ve been part of this community for almost five decades, and now we have clients whose parents came to my parents, and they’re coming to us with the next chapter of their family’s story. That means a lot to me.

I also think what sets us apart is that so much of the process happens right here. We’re not just selling jewelry. We’re designing it, engineering it, working with the stones, manufacturing it, setting it, finishing it, repairing it, and restoring it. There are real people and real hands behind what we make.

And at the end of the day, that’s what I want Simone & Son to always be: a place where artistry and craftsmanship still matter, where we can use the best technology available without losing the human touch, and where the jewelry we create actually means something to the person wearing it.

How do you think about luck?
I come from a family of incredibly hard-working people. Nothing my parents built happened overnight, and very little was handed to them. They started over in a new country, built their reputation one client at a time, and spent years perfecting their craft. Growing up around that, I learned pretty early that if you want something to last, you have to be willing to put in the work.

I think the same has been true for Simone & Son. Where we are today is the result of almost five decades of showing up, having a vision, staying committed to our craft, and constantly trying to become better at what we do. There have been great years and difficult years, but through all of them, the work has always been there.

What I do believe is that we’ve been incredibly blessed with people.

We’ve been blessed with clients who have trusted us, supported us, referred their friends and families, and in many cases stayed with us for generations. Those relationships are really the foundation of our business.

We’ve also been fortunate to have incredibly talented people become part of our team over the years. Jewelry is not something one person creates alone. It takes designers, jewelers, stone setters, gemologists, and people who genuinely care about the work they’re doing. Having the right people beside you. People who share your standards and take pride in their craft—makes all the difference.

So I wouldn’t necessarily call it luck. I would call it hard work, vision, consistency, and being blessed with the right relationships along the way.

My parents always understood that your reputation is something you earn over time. I think that’s still how we look at the business today. We never assume someone will walk through our doors just because we’ve been here for almost five decades. We want to earn that relationship every time.

If there has been any “luck” in our story, I would say it’s having so many good people walk through those doors and become part of our community.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.simoneandson.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simoneandson/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SimoneAndSon/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shant-dakessian-b73a9414/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Simoneandson
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/simone-and-son-jewelers-huntington-beach-2?ylpcid=3358674dba2e49ebbcab81809d4a3b445cd8ab5c