At all times, diamond jewellery attracted the connoisseurs of art by the glitter of gold and sparkling fire of diamonds. However, Nature gives us both precious metals and gems in their pristine state. The jeweler has to work hard to unveil their beauty and show it with masterly skill in a precious piece of art.
In fact, polished diamonds – up to a certain moment - are just dim rough diamonds, even the purest one of them does not look better than a usual chip or a block of ice. But the development of brilliant and other cuts gave the jewellers ample opportunities to turn their bold artistic designs into reality.
According to jewellery industry experts, there exist about 255 cuts and the search of new even more perfect ones is in progress. Every cut gives a gem special features and creates its one-of-a-kind design; be it the standard Round Cut (57 diamond facets) used in about 90 per cent of all diamonds in the polished diamond market and which is the best to demonstrate the dazzling diamond brilliance, or ‘briolette’ so much loved by renown jewellery companies like Chaumet, Antonini and Cartier. These polished diamonds were owned by many famous people and crowned heads. The ‘Emerald’ cut is also popular and gives a gem the optical features that add wide and bright sparkling, as well as the ‘pear’ cut that emphasizes all the best and strong features of the large diamond jewellery – water-drop shaped earrings and pendants. There exist many other polished diamond shapes.
Nowadays, jewellery companies often use their own techniques in diamond cutting, for example, ‘High Light’ (73 facets), ‘Royal Cut’ (86), ‘Magna’ (102). And, certainly, the exclusive ‘Firing Ice’ cut used by EPL Diamond to produce ‘Hearts and Arrows’, ideal Yakut top quality polished diamonds.
A beautiful setting for a beautiful gem
- Don’t you see that this woman is destined for luxury? An expensive diamond requires an expensive setting.
- And a qualified jeweler.
- You are absolutely right. A jeweler is not an ordinary craftsman: he should be an artist. In a hand-to-mouth existence, married a stupid husband, she will either die or turn vulgar.
(‘A Fortuneless Young Girl’ by A.N. Ostrovsky)
It is a very simple fact that even the best gem could be ‘killed’ with an ugly setting. And on the contrary, a beautiful setting unveils the splendor of a beautiful diamond even better. Many world most famous diamonds confirm this. For example, the legendary Tiffany yellow diamond (128.54 carats) that had its fourth setting by the 175th anniversary of the company – a platinum necklace decorated with three hundred gems. Or the ‘Peacock Brooch’ created by Laurence Graff having a rare 20.02 ct blue diamond looking like a bird with a tail with each peacock quill being crowned with a large size colorless diamond, several smaller pink ones and a sparkling golden one.
In general, laconism is inherent to Western jewellery as distinguished from the Oriental one, to give accent to the gem in the centre that is the most expensive element in the jewellery piece. As a matter of fact, all the rest is used to create a decent setting intended to emphasize all its luxury – its natural unique character and beauty.
So, for example, we can mention the settings of classic diamond rings that make the diamonds look even more beautiful.
A Tiffany setting is the most popular engagement ring style at present. It was specially designed to place emphasis upon the gem. To make the most of the diamond be seen and shine, Charles Lewis Tiffany and his team of gemologists invented a gimmick: the claws were lifted to securely hold the solitaire in place above the ring band to make it seen from all the sides. According to the design, a certain numbers of claws - 6 - should be used and as less metal as possible to brighten the diamond. A simple smooth classic setting made of gold or platinum gives such a ring its everlasting charm of classic elegant luxury.
Tension setting (fixing the unsupported diamond by tension) is a setting creating a fantastic visual effect: it seems that a diamond is hanging in the air while it is fixed at the edges by tension. The light is reflected practically from the whole diamond surface and makes it sparkle better. The precious gem brightness can be increased by 2 points thanks to such a setting. US Gelin Abaci jeweler is the largest manufacturer of the Tension setting rings.
In any case, to make transparent stones look most eye-catching their setting colour should be neutral – white or silvery. The stone with light yellowish hue could look colorless when mounted in a white gold setting.
The Bain&Co online-enquiries (held within the framework of making a report on the world diamond industry in 2012) showed that when choosing the diamond jewellery, the majority of women first of all take into account their design, and the classic design mainly dominates over the modern trendy one.
Sprucing about, any woman of fashion will surely wears a diamond ring – jewel number one.
Classic jewellery keeps on being main favorites of Hollywood stars, they like how beneficially they accentuate their status and gracefulness on the red carpet.
Classic jewellery is handed down from generation to generation as a family heirloom.
On birthdays and jubilees, the proven classic jewellery is also presented because it is thought that a person would wear it.
And certainly, the main motivation for buying classic diamond rings remains to be engagements and weddings, because for the overwhelming majority of women, the diamond rings are a symbol of engagement, marriage and love – the eternal values making the engagement and wedding rings highly-prized.
“About 95 per cent of people come to us to buy classic diamonds,” says Bob Swanson, owner of ‘Swanson Jewelers’ store in Arlington, Massachusetts. – “And only 5 per cent of them come for something else.” And this ratio as for the engagement rings is about the same everywhere.
Some time ago, De Beers launched a powerful advertising campaign to promote diamonds, and the core of it was a diamond engagement ring - a triumph of marketing, a luxury that had become a must-have ring that several times stimulated the demand through a new product mix. It was successful, as is well known.
Promotion of diamond jewellery and shaping of consumer tastes and preferences is a key instrument in the sales growth. To achieve this, the jewellery companies keep on widening the generic diamond advertising. They make movie shorts with jewellery collections as the main part, lend out jewellery to the Hollywood stars to appear in public, launch ads in magazines and TV and radio commercials. Various marketing instruments are actively used, for example, holiday discounts, sales promotions and exclusive offers.
Jewellery product range, quality and well-thought design are of importance for today’s consumers; a seller needs salesmanship to present these jewellery the right way, which – by some reasons – is sometimes done the wrong way. That is why it is important to remember that improving the culture of consumption should go hand-in-hand to the sales culture.
Veronica Novoselova, Rough&Polished
