In the summertime of 2020, on the peak of the pandemic, an Asia-based consumer approached De Beers with a request so detailed and idiosyncratic that even an organization accustomed to bespoke commissions for a discerning clientele might fairly moderately have been stumped. “She wished one thing very particular,” says De Beers Jewellers CEO Céline Assimon. The consumer’s precise needs dictated a D-flawless diamond with a mixture of personally vital, symbolic proportions and numbers (presumably for the carats and sides), in addition to a assure of a sure kind of sunshine reflection and refraction—a boutique-bought diamond, regardless of the minimize, readability or measurement, merely wouldn’t suffice. “We didn’t have and wouldn’t have minimize a diamond in that means for inventory,” says Assimon. 

So De Beers unearthed a tough stone that might fulfill the necessities. The method from procuring the uncut diamond to setting the ensuing completed gems in a pair of drop earrings took over a yr, with the consumer concerned at each step. As stunning because the items turned out, the consumer acquired greater than distinctive stones and bespoke earrings—she additionally scored one hell of a narrative. “The journey is extra essential, in a means, than the tip product,” Assimon says. “You’re going to be holding it in your loved ones without end.” 

Increasingly, high-jewelry shoppers are insisting on ever rising thresholds of exclusivity and unparalleled bragging rights, making ego-centric calls for that may be happy solely by working with a tough diamond, slicing it to precise specs and setting it within the design of their desires. The escalating needs of VVIPs are shaking up a as soon as rigidly hierarchical business. Historically, mines would supply tough stones and promote them to sellers, who would then have the stones minimize and polished (both by way of their very own firms or third events) earlier than promoting them to high-jewelry homes to be changed into completed necklaces, rings and different items. Typically mines would minimize the stones for sellers, and infrequently, within the case of extraordinary stones, jewellery homes would supply their very own roughs. Usually, nevertheless, every sector of the enterprise stayed in its lane. 

At present, everyone seems to be speeding to carve out their very own channel to ship diamonds, even multimillion-dollar roughs, direct to shoppers. Mines and sellers alike are usurping high-jewelry homes by placing tough diamonds in personal shoppers’ palms to create one-of-a-kind items. In the meantime, jewellery homes, together with Graff, Van Cleef & Arpels and Louis Vuitton, are securing legendary stones as the muse—each literal and narrative—of their high-jewelry collections. 

Two new firms steeped within the enterprise of mining, slicing and sharpening stones have cropped up this fall to promote vital roughs straight to shoppers, bypassing the supplier and the jewellery homes altogether. Signum—a subsidiary of HB Antwerp, a Belgium-based provide chain and manufacturing agency specializing in slicing and dealing in high-end diamonds—is bringing roughs to shoppers for bespoke designs, whereas Maison Mazerea, a brand new enterprise from Burgundy Diamond Mines in Perth, Australia, is providing each uncut stones for bespoke items and excessive jewellery created in partnership with unbiased A-list designers, corresponding to Parisian Lorenz Baümer, utilizing diamonds straight mined, minimize and polished in-house.

“What we’re attempting to deliver to our final clients is one thing that’s completely distinctive, one thing that the particular person within the yacht subsequent door doesn’t have.” 

The bar for uncommon diamonds is already excessive, however Maison Mazerea is properly positioned because of the established capabilities of its dad or mum mining firm. It can additionally supply stones by way of mining partnerships in Canada, Botswana and different key diamond-rich international locations. And, when the Argyle Diamond Mines, identified for the world’s most interesting pink diamonds, closed in 2020, Mazerea promptly employed its famend cutters. “We simply minimize a seven-and-a-half carat [diamond],” says Ravenscroft. “That’s prob- ably a two- or three-million-dollar piece of stone, and that got here out of a few 14-carat piece of tough. Our subsequent one is a 24-carat piece of tough, so we’ll be producing a bigger stone with that.” 

Mazerea will even function uncommon cuts, with fewer sides to indicate extra refined mild refraction than trendy cuts and extra of the stone’s pure shade, impressed by Seventeenth-century methods used for the French royal courts. (The model identify comes from Cardinal Mazarin, an essential diamond collector and chief minister to Louis XIII and Louis XIV.) “If somebody desires a marquise minimize, they’re not going to get one from us,” says Ravenscroft. However for shoppers in search of an object and an expertise out of attain for many, Mazerea will present uncooked materials for {custom} initiatives that match inside its untraditional aesthetic. “We will supply anyone a tough diamond, and so they can come to the mine, they’ll meet the folks. We will get into our slicing facility, and so they can sit with the design and planning of the stone.” 

Whereas Maison Mazerea will even promote completed items in partnership with unbiased designers, HB Antwerp’s Signum is dealing completely in tough diamonds, providing each consumer full management over their stone from its rugged nascent state to its glittering finale. The method can take anyplace from three months for an easy strategy to a yr or extra for extra advanced initiatives, corresponding to creating a novel minimize full with its personal IP rights. Signum, like Maison Mazerea, can be properly located for this new enterprise mannequin: Its headquarters in Antwerp is the place greater than 86 % of the world’s tough diamonds are traded. 

Forward of Signum’s official launch earlier than the tip of this yr, a couple of early adopters have been already discovering themselves happy with its bevy of uncommon stones. One consumer proposed to his fiancée with a tough throughout a hike in Gstaad, Switzerland. And no, the rock didn’t appear to be one thing he’d simply picked up on the path. “He set the tough diamond in a good looking ring,” says Rafael Papismedov, managing companion and technique director of HB Antwerp and Signum. “She was strolling round with this ring for 2 months, and everyone was asking questions.” When the couple lastly determined what to do with the stone, she had a tough time letting it go. “However then sitting there for hours with our [team], measuring angles, deciding on the size, deciding on the place the sunshine reflection goes to return from and the way it’s going to look was such a good looking course of.

I feel it’s such a good looking approach to begin a wedding.” One other consumer was so glad together with his preliminary two uncut gems, he transferred $2 million to Signum to discover a third. “He stated, ‘Hold it and if you discover me a stone, simply let me know,’ ” claims Papismedov. “It was fairly addictive.” 

So far as addictions go, amassing a set of million-dollar tough diamonds is a quite costly behavior, so lavish it virtually appears suspect. However Signum is protecting a decent rein on its items, which might be 10 carats or bigger and, because of this, in very restricted provide. Potential shoppers must undergo a know-your-customer vetting course of. In each excessive jewellery and high-end watches, manufacturers typically closely analysis—and even interview— consumers and sometimes require an current consumer’s referral earlier than finalizing a transaction. “We don’t need to be a machine for cash laundering,” says Papismedov. “We don’t need to be a machine for corrupt politicians to purchase items to cover the worth by way of us. We don’t need to serve any drug lords. That’s why firstly we’re going to launch this platform within the Western world, primarily on the West and East Coast of the US and increase slowly into Europe. Whenever you be part of this [figurative] membership on this neighborhood, you’ll be comfy figuring out that the individuals are sharing the identical values.” Mazerea, like-wise, might be specializing in North America as a result of, says Ravenscroft, “squeaky-clean manufacturing processes are much less essential in Jap markets.” 

As for the businesses’ personal ethics, each are encouraging shoppers to go to the mines and/or headquarters, to allow them to, in concept, meet the employees and witness the working situations first-hand. Signum additionally makes use of block-chain expertise to certify the origin and authenticity of the diamonds to guard towards shady practices, corresponding to Russian mines transport roughs to India, the place they’re minimize, polished and labeled as Indian to get round Western bans on Russian gems. “The concept is—and it performs very strongly to the provenance side—we all know the place the diamond got here from as a result of we mined it, and it by no means leaves our management till it results in the shopper’s jewellery piece,” says Ravenscroft. 

Each Mazerea and Signum will even donate a portion of the proceeds to assist the native mining communities. Signum is taking its progressive enterprise practices a step additional by holding its mines to heightened environmental, social and governance values—and elevating the value because of this. “Every little thing you need to know concerning the mine, from the environmental influence as to whether they’re utilizing diesel or photo voltaic panels, how they’re washing all the things, what sort of chemical compounds are used, what sort of explosives—all the things might be rated inside the value of the diamond,” says Papismedov. Governments’ and the mines’ sustainability efforts might be second. “The concept is to deliver incentives to miners and to authorities to use the very best requirements on this world.”

Maybe attempting to get a bounce on the competitors, jewellery homes corresponding to De Beers and Graff are already dialing it up notch. Graff acquired Lesedi La Rona (that means “Our Mild” within the Tswana language of Botswana, the place the diamond was mined) for $53 million. At 1,109 carats, it’s the fourth-largest diamond ever discovered—so large the corporate needed to custom-build a scanner and imaging software program to determine how one can minimize it. Graff then used a laser to inscribe every of the 66 ensuing stones with the identify of the diamond. The markings should not seen to the bare eye however add a hid layer of provenance. “They bought shortly,” says CEO François Graff. “Engraving them with their origin was our means of celebrating this once-in-a-lifetime discover and giving our shoppers the chance to put on a good looking piece of historical past.” 

These prime purveyors should not novices in the case of roughs. De Beers Group started creating its personal branded jewellery items in 2001 however has been producing and supplying diamonds to the business since its founding in 1888 and accounted for an estimated 80 % of the rough-diamond distribution till the start of the twenty first century. Even as we speak, it sells about 30 % of the world’s rough-diamond manufacturing by worth. Graff, based in 1960, bought its first main uncut stone in 1989, when it acquired the 320-carat Paragon, which yielded a 137.72-carat gem, the biggest D-flawless diamond on the planet on the time, and since 2000 has purchased an essential specimen practically yearly. 

Such is the ability of those stones, manufacturers are actually promoting way of life merchandise impressed by their gargantuan treasures. François Graff, whose father, Laurence, spent a yr negotiating the deal for the Lesedi La Rona, says they “knew it had the potential to be a history-making stone.” Now Graff is milking the rock’s fame for all its value, even providing namesake fragrances housed in emerald-cut crystal flacons meant to seize the essence of the diamond. 

The concept these billion-year-old rocks can create countless hype has enticed newcomers. In 2018, Van Cleef & Arpels, which has traditionally opted to purchase stones already minimize and polished, paid a reported $40 million for the 910-carat Lesotho Legend, the fifth-largest diamond ever mined. President and CEO Nicolas Bos says Van Cleef usually doesn’t purchase roughs as a result of they typically yield diamonds of various qualities—they would be the similar shade however not the identical purity. “Right here what was a bit particular is that one of many sellers now we have labored with for a really very long time… noticed that the standard was so excessive that it will most likely be extraordinarily constant all through the stone,” says Bos. 

It took virtually a yr of planning—utilizing scanners, CAD designs and the instincts of the cutters—earlier than instruments penetrated stone and one other three years to create a high-jewelry assortment, which debuted in July. It options 67 diamonds, ranging in sizes from 25.06 to 79.35 carats, from the unique. “It simply brings an entire different dimension to the maison’s provenance, which I consider shoppers understand as further worth and possibly even brings that rather more pull to the high-jewelry collections,” says Kristina Buckley Kayel, managing director of the Pure Diamond Council and former vp of promoting and communications for Van Cleef & Arpels. “I feel when you will have the likes of Van Cleef doing one thing like this, we’ll most likely be seeing extra of it.” 

Not lengthy after Van Cleef acquired the Lesotho Legend, rivals began digging into the rough-diamond market. In 2019, Louis Vuitton snapped up the 1,758-carat Sewelô, the second-largest diamond ever discovered (outdone solely by the three,106-carat Cullinan mined in South Africa in 1905), adopted by the 549-carat Sethunya in 2020. Each have been uncovered at Lucara’s Karowe mine in Botswana, the place the Lesedi La Rona was additionally unearthed. Though Vuitton has been making high-jewelry collections since 2009, it was a shocking transfer for a maison extra broadly identified for promoting luxurious leather-based items and ready-to-wear. Whereas the French home received’t disclose how a lot it paid, the Sewelô alone is estimated between $6.5 million and $19 million. The ensuing stones might be reserved for made-to-order diamonds, permitting VIP shoppers to be concerned within the course of from begin to end. The slicing and sharpening of the Sewelô and Sethunya diamonds, stated to be advanced, might be spearheaded by HB Antwerp, the dad or mum firm of Signum, the identical agency now promoting its personal roughs straight to shoppers. 

The large maisons and jewellery homes, apart from only a few, if any, don’t have any data of remodeling these diamonds from tough to polished,” claims Papismedov, unsurprisingly. These homes, he provides, are accustomed to outsourcing the job virtually 99 % of the time, so will face a steep studying curve. “Positively, it’s nice PR and it’s an attention-grabbing story, however they don’t have the in-house data to do it. Their involvement is principally about placing a bit of metallic round it and really not often about creating the diamond itself.” 

What’s going to it imply for giant luxurious homes as sellers, cutters and miners begin dipping into one another’s respective consumer swimming pools? These involved with model names will, in fact, stay loyal to the standard jewelers. However for the vaults that have already got all the things cash can purchase, controlling all the creation of a jewel, from the bottom to the pores and skin, might be the ultimate frontier.