Harry Winston is among the most prestigious luxury jewelers in the world. Its exclusive products are sold in 25 stores worldwide on the markets of Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New-York, Paris, Singapore and Tokyo. However, the global jewellery empire is managed from its headquarters in Fifth Avenue, New-York, where the company has been keeping a historical jewellery store for many years as well as the workshops where jewellery is still designed and where the choicest of gemstones are cut and polished. Starting from 2004, Harry Winston is a leader in the global jewellery market, according to the Luxury Institute ratings based on the survey results among the U.S. ultra high net worth consumers. The responders consider it to be a “great reputation” mark, a leader in the diamond jewellery design, point out the jeweler’s goods quality and exclusivity and consider its jewellery as investments. If Cartier’s jewellery is art for the French, then a Harry Winston jewellery piece is a reward for the Americans.
“The history of the House of Harry Winston is the embodiment of three generations of jewelers: Jacob - Harry - Ronald. In 1890, Jacob, Harry’s father, opened a jewellery store in Manhattan. Ronald, the Harry’s son, completed the family business chronicle in 2004, having sold the diamond empire majority stake to a Canadian diamond mining corporation Aber Diamond. Harry Winston himself devoted most of his life to the project he created.
Man and boy, Harry Winston was charmed with the diamond rainbow and magic sparkling of gemstones. He was involved in the business by his father and at the age of 15 he started selling polished diamonds. He was 19 years old only, when he set up his first own jewellery company - the Premier Diamond Company. In the 1920s-1930s, when there was a change of emphasis in the New World fashion, Harry Winston could benefit thanks to his absolutely new way of thinking and his passion for jewellery.
He purchased jewellery pieces in estate sales that were old fashioned, out-of-style and refashioned them to update the jewellery taking into account the new trends. By creating the fine and miniature jewellery out of massive ones, Harry Winston laid the ground for the American jewellery minimalism and at the same time he developed a taste for large polished diamonds. With great love and dedication, he extended the life of vintage gems mounting them in new settings and looking for new owners for them.
Harry Winston made a revolution in the jewellery fashion of those days. He developed a setting made of fine-drawn platinum (platinum or ‘weightless’ setting) that is so flexible that it was sparkling and ‘flowing’ when moving, which gave the gems an absolutely new look. Polished diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires were incrusted in a very light platinum wire setting (frame) so that to fully highlight their natural perfection and beauty. His idea of a three-dimensional setting of gemstones made the jewellery multilevel, protruding thus making them look very much different from ‘flat’ French and Italian jewellery.
Up to now, the designs of the Harry Winston’s adornments are dictated by the stones, rather than the metal – and this is the golden rule introduced by the founder. Harry Winston insisted that it was impossible to spoil a gemstone with a massive setting, and particularly, a polished diamond with a gold chase. The design can be invented, destroyed and invented anew, he said, but the natural beauty of a stone could not be invented but could be easily killed.
In 1932, Harry Winston set up a same-name company and started to create his own limited exclusive jewellery lines and collect rare large-size polished diamonds. A record number of the largest polished diamonds is linked with Harry Winston’s name. He left all and every behind in possessing the famous diamonds like ‘Jonker’, ‘Hope Diamond’, ‘Vargas’, ‘The Star of Sierra Leone’, ‘Taylor-Burton’, ‘The Star of the East’, ‘Oppenheimer’ and others. There are about three hundred unique polished diamonds, and in Harry Winston’s collection alone there were sixty such gemstones. Soon, the legendary jeweller got a reputation as ‘The King of Diamonds’.
The Harry Winston company is called ‘The Precious Star of New-York’ and ‘The Jeweller for the Stars’. It was Harry Winston who was the first to decorate the celebrities on the red carpet with sparkling gemstones in 1947: since that time, not a single Oscar awarding ceremony could do without the Harry Winston’s jewellery. Ronald Winston, who took the office as a CEO in 1978 has officially introduced loaning of jewellery into practice within the framework of the brand promotion strategy.
The history of the legendary House of Harry Winston has been and is being written with the exclusive polished diamonds only. It is worthy of note that the stones are selected (as for their shape, size and clarity) by one and the same person, who even worked with Harry Winston himself. This is Andre Falion. The owner of the company gave him a nickname ’The Diamond Eye’. Sometimes, he kept a 99 percent ready piece in the safe waiting for a ‘suitable’ gem and he explained himself that “Our customers are fond of perfection.”
Harry Winston conquered the world with their flawless polished diamonds and filigreed precise workmanship. The company’s approach to crafting the jewellery remains the same: the best experts in every field are hired from all over the world and the most challenging tasks are set for them, and then their work is most carefully coordinated and highly controlled. Although Harry Winston creates a diamond atmosphere, one can see other gemstones like sapphire, aquamarine, emeralds, tourmaline, chalchuite and ruby in his collections. His favourite cuts are those that show the brilliance and luster of a gemstone to the greatest extent – the ‘emerald’, classic round and ‘pear’ ones.
In 2011, the Diamond Drop Earrings by Harry Winston topped the Forbes list of the highest-end jewellery. The earrings costing US$8.5 million were created by the craftsmen of the jewellery house in 2006. The total weight of the polished diamonds was 60.1 carats. The price even of a relatively low-end and not a one-of-a-kind jewellery piece of this brand can reach US$10 000. Not every person can afford a Harry Winston jewellery item. Most of the House of Harry Winston customers are celebrities, members of royal families and other very high net-worth customers.
Veronica Novoselova, Rough&Polished
