THREE things make up the ultimate pinky piece...
Size
Although the piece needs to have an overall smaller design size to it, it is generally in the style that the size is made to work more applicably to the pinky finger.
Style
The finer points of the style is where the pinky ring feels its purpose.
Firstly, with less 'meat' and knuckle on the pinky, the pinky ring needs quite a snug fit and therefore to be able to fit into the back crease, there needs to be a steep curve on the shoulders after the signet face.
Secondly, is removing any obtrusiveness to the piece. It needs to sit low and flush to the finger. Its a strange thing that you'll notice when wearing a larger pinky ring, is how often you'll clip it on a table when you're walking by. It's bizarre. You'd never noticed how calculated these table fly-bys are, until you slap a ring on the pinky. So any additional distance added to your paw, will get annoying.
Lastly, is this feeling of comfort. As the pinky rings need to be perfectly snug and up close next to the webbing on the finger, its essential that the shank profile is perfectly round.
Significance
Significance, seems like it should apply to all pieces, however I feel that there is a prestige and legacy to a pinky piece that doesn't exist with all rings.
As we noted previously, having the pinky occupied by any ring is 90% of the job done. Aesthetics aside. What I mean is, many other rings will need to carry a lot more design attraction for other fingers, where as the pinky ring has a sole purpose of sitting on the outside of the paw and carrying purpose or significance. Whether a meaningful gift, a reminder, or a simple 'yep, I'm a pinky ring type...'.
We've built in the ability to have legacy and added significance by, adding the hallmarks to the face to represent the year it was made, where it was made and a final added touch, is the individual piece number. 1/500, 2/500.... and so on.
NOW ONLINE
This year, we've kept the core principles of a pinky ring strong and adapted further. Let's let Ned Flanders do the heavy lifting here... "It's like wearing nothing at all... Nothing at all.... NOTHING AT ALL"
You want that flanking outer metal to be hugging flush to the fist. It needs to have a 'comfort' to it, which is strange to say about a piece of metal suctioned to your knuckle. But, it needs to feel like you're wearing nothing at all.
As the pinky lacks girth and the knuckle structure to hold a piece securely on the finger like all the other digits, we've kept the face quite thin, which will allow it to tuck into the crease on the inside of the hand. Then the features of the signet, flow with the contours of the hand - without being a ballbag with the description, better said 'it's well rounded and sits low to the finger'.
"Anything, As Long As It Hugs This lil' Digit..."
There's a strange thing that I've picked up on during my time with CHD...
Two approaches with very different entry points, have shown to be the main settlement for shopping attitudes.
Here they are:
"I want THIS ring... It pumps. I love it... Now, what finger should I channel it on?"
OR, and this is big departure from the first approach...
"I need a ring for my pinky... I don't overly care what ring, just a pinky ring."
The nuance (might not even be that nuanced, but its a fun word to say, or type) here is that people either are focused on the ring or the pinky finger. The focus on a particular finger, really doesn't extend beyond the pinky. Obviously unless its for a wedding ring. Even still, the ring's aesthetic plays more of a role than for the purpose of filling that little outside prodder aka the pinky.