Cutting Edge

How rough diamonds became the ne plus ultra of jewellery hunting and the ultimate status symbol for collectors and jewellery houses alike.

- Paige Reddinger

In the summer of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, an Asia-based client approached De Beers with a request so detailed and idiosyncratic that even a company accustomed to bespoke commissions for a discerning clientele could quite reasonably have been stumped. "She wanted something very specific," says De Beers Jewellers CEO Céline Assimon. The client's exact wishes dictated a D-flawless diamond with a mix of personally significant, symbolic proportions and numbers (presumably for the carats and facets) as well as a guarantee of a certain type of light reflection and refraction - a boutique-bought diamond, no matter the cut, clarity or size, simply wouldn't suffice. "We did not have and would not have cut a diamond in that way for stock," says Assimon.

So De Beers unearthed a rough stone that could fulfill the requirements. The process from procuring the uncut diamond to setting the resulting finished gems in a pair of drop earrings took over a year, with the client involved at every step. As beautiful as the pieces turned out, the client acquired more than unique stones and bespoke earrings - she also scored one hell of a story. "The journey is more important, in a way, than the end product," Assimon says. "You are going to be holding it in your family forever."