Harakh Mehta created a three-piece, 150-carat diamond set to celebrate the store’s big anniversary.
New York City has many icons, like the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center. And Bloomingdale’s, the department store that opened shop in 1872 and this year is marking its 150th anniversary.
“To celebrate, we desired to create iconic pieces that paid homage to our rich history,” Marissa Galante Frank, the store’s fashion director of accessories and beauty, wrote in an email. “For the first time ever, we created a jewelry suite that is comprised of 150 carats of diamonds” — to echo the store’s 150 years in business.
The retailer turned to the jeweler Harakh Mehta to create the three-piece set. The designer “first caught our attention when he was named the exclusive diamantaire for the 2019 Le Bal des Débutantes in Paris,” Ms. Galante Frank wrote, referring to organizers of the French event tapping Mr. Mehta for his skills as a diamond specialist.
Mr. Mehta, whose Harakh line already had a presence in several Bloomingdale’s locations throughout the United States, said he agreed immediately. “When they announced they were celebrating their 150th anniversary, we knew that we just had to be part of their joyous occasion,” the Indian jeweler said in an email, noting that in his native language Gujarati, his name means joy.
The designs for the earrings, bracelet and necklace were “inspired by my childhood memories of driving up the hills during the monsoons and bathing in the waterfalls,” Mr. Mehta wrote before describing each piece.
The earrings, which total 18 carats, were designed as dangling clusters of brilliant-cut round, pear- and marquise-shaped diamonds, interspersed with Harakh’s signature rose-cut round and pear-shaped stones. “They are set in specially created modulated settings to represent the energy and flow of the cascading water,” Mr. Mehta wrote.
The 32-carat bracelet had two straps of diamonds holding a central oval cluster set with brilliant-cut round, oval- and pear-shaped stones, interspersed with rose-cut gems in various shapes. And completing the trio was a V-shaped necklace, which has the same combination of brilliant- and rose-cut diamonds in rounds, pears, marquises and ovals, totaling 100 carats.
Bloomingdale’s
To make the jewelry weigh as little as possible, Mr. Mehta wrote, the diamonds were set in an 18-karat mix of white gold and a palladium-based alloy.
Finding the right diamonds wasn’t easy, the jeweler wrote: “The search for these 150 carats quite literally traversed six continents over nearly 12 months.”
In a later email he wrote: “There are certified Canadian diamonds. Also, there are diamonds in special shapes, cut and polished from rough diamonds sourced from the mines of Brazil, Africa and Australia. There are also other diamonds that were bought from the bourses of Antwerp, Mumbai and New York, which we recut.”
The suite has been displayed at various Bloomingdale’s stores, and is now available for sale as a set or as individual pieces. The high jewelry department at the retailer’s 59th Street flagship in New York has information on prices.
The project was all worth the effort, Ms. Galante Frank wrote: “Diamonds signify the longevity and brilliance of our brand. Diamonds are forever.”
Burgundy Diamond Mines managing director Peter Ravenscroft has resigned from the Australian company with immediate effect.
The board has appointed Kim Truter, who became nonexecutive chairman of the miner in December 2021, as interim CEO, Burgundy said last week.
Truter has over 30 years of experience in the alluvial and underground mining sector. He has also held executive positions at De Beers in Canada and with Rio Tinto’s diamond unit in Australia.
Meanwhile, Michael O’Keefe, who has been a nonexecutive director since 2017, will take over as executive chairman. He is the former CEO and current executive chairman of Champion Iron, which operates an iron-ore project in Canada. Burgundy has not announced whether it is looking for a long-term successor for Ravenscroft.
A blue diamond pendant will be among the headliners in next month’s Christie’s sale in New York, where it is expected to bring in up to $15 million.
The pear modified brilliant-cut, 31.62-carat, fancy-blue stone, surrounded by white and pink diamonds, is potentially internally flawless, Christie’s said Tuesday. A pear brilliant-cut, 86.64-carat, D-color, VVS1-clarity diamond pendant will join it at the December 6 Magnificent Jewels sale. That piece, which hangs from a chain of 78 diamonds between 0.50 and 2.50 carats, is estimated at $5 million to $7 million.
Other notable items include a torque bangle bracelet bearing a heart brilliant-cut, 50.05-carat, D-color, internally flawless diamond, with a presale price of $3.7 million to $4.5 million. A modified pear double rose-cut, 5-carat, fancy-vivid-blue diamond ring has an upper estimate of $4 million and no reserve. An oval brilliant-cut, 51.60-carat, G-color, VS2-clarity diamond ring carries a high price of $2.8 million.
Christie’s will also offer an unmounted modified pear brilliant-cut, 104.04-carat, fancy-intense-yellow diamond. That jewel has an upper estimate of $2.5 million, as does a round-cornered square brilliant-cut, 107.46-carat, fancy-yellow diamond brooch by Graff. Meanwhile, an emerald-cut, 13.75-carat, fancy-vivid-yellow, internally flawless diamond ring by De Beers and an oval brilliant-cut, 2.21-carat, fancy-intense-blue diamond ring are set to fetch up to $1.8 million each.
Those items join the star of the show: An emerald-cut, 13.15-carat, fancy-vivid-pink diamond ring that Christie’s expects will fetch up to $35 million at the auction.
Diamond miner Lucapa Diamond Company has sold seven diamonds from its Lulo mine in Angola for $30.1 million, equating to over $39,000 per carat.
The company and its partners, Endiama E.P. and Rosas & Petalas, placed the “special sized” diamonds on international tender earlier this month. Together, the diamonds weighed a combined 767 carats.
The sold diamonds include a 170-carat fancy-coloured diamond dubbed the ‘Lulo Rose’ alongside three white Type IIa diamonds of over 100 carats and three other special-sized white Type IIa stones.
In late September, Lucapa announced it had recovered its 30th diamond of over 100 carats from Lulo, which has been in commercial production since 2015.
The company kicked off commercial production from its Mothae mine in Lesotho in 2019.
Meanwhile, Lucapa said it was continuing to explore for potential primary-source kimberlites or lamproites with its partners across the Lulo concession in Angola, the Brooking project in Australia, and the Orapa Area F project in Botswana.
A portrayal of De Beers’ operations past and present.
Bruce Cleaver reflects on the changes that took effect in the six years he headed the diamond company.
RAPAPORT… Bruce Cleaver had a very focused “to do” list when he took over as De Beers CEO in July 2016. Having previously worked on strategy and business development at the company, as well as at parent Anglo American, he recognized De Beers’ need to evolve, and to protect it from the increasing volatility evident in the global economy and diamond market.
“I wanted to build a more sustainable business; one that was less prone to economic cycles,” Cleaver stresses in an interview with Rapaport News. “I wanted to ensure we’d never get caught in the position we had in 2008 when we hit a very serious downturn and our balance sheet was very stretched.”
Bruce Cleaver
He never imagined those goals would be challenged by a global pandemic and a war in Ukraine that has brought sanctions on Russian diamonds — approximately one-third of global rough supply. These aren’t events you predict in your risk analysis, he notes.
In contrast to 2008, when De Beers had to take on more debt to weather the financial crisis, the company emerged from Covid-19 stronger than before, and it may even have benefited from the limitations on Russia-based Alrosa — its biggest competitor. The $491 million in underlying earnings it reported in the first six months of 2022 was its best half-year profit since 2011, and the $3.54 billion in revenue its highest since 2014 (see graph).
But Cleaver looks beyond the financials as he reflects on his tenure at the helm of the world’s largest diamond company. His six-and-a-half-year stint brought a significant transformation to De Beers’ structure, brand positioning, messaging, and relationships, all of which he believes demonstrate transparency and a willingness to change that were not always evident at the company.
Call to collaborate
His first public statement after being appointed to the position called for greater cooperation and partnerships within the trade. He actively sought to ease the tension that often stood between De Beers and sightholders and at times its government partners, he admits.
“It was important for us to show people we would change, listen more and collaborate more,” he reflects. “I do feel there is much more trust now than before, and a sense of working toward a common goal — that we can agree to disagree in a more friendly way.”
Central to achieving that was the refurbishment of the sightholder application process, which he concedes had previously been complicated and intimidating. The current system further demonstrates De Beers’ willingness to be more open and transparent, Cleaver insists. It’s a complicated task, he adds, considering the company distributes some 33 million carats a year and must set criteria to award goods to certain people and not to others.
The sheer volume of De Beers’ production means the company is unlikely to shift away from the sight system any time soon. However, it did tweak its distribution at the beginning of 2022 to provide more bespoke supply by classifying sightholders according to their business type: manufacturer, dealer, or retailer. The move was seen as an attempt to reduce the flipping of boxes on the secondary market and to bring more efficiency to the supply chain.
Special stones to sell
There has been speculation that the Botswana government — a 15% shareholder in De Beers and a joint venture partner in its mining and selling distribution businesses — is pressuring the miner to sell its specials through the parastatal Okavango Diamond Company, in vertically integrated deals with manufacturers. The two are currently negotiating a new 10-year supply deal and the renewal of De Beers’ mining licenses in the southern African country.
Structuring supply in such a way would see the company (and government) take a share of profit from the sale of the resulting polished. Smaller companies have struck similar partnerships, such as Lucara Diamond Corp.’s agreement to sell its 10.8-carat-plus rough through manufacturer HB Antwerp.
Cleaver notes the deeper considerations with which De Beers must contend. “It’s a whole different ball game selling 33 million carats a year than 50,000 carats. We have an offering that we must sort, value, sell, trace and track on a completely different scale,” he points out. “You have to be much more sophisticated, more thoughtful and have a much stronger balance sheet.”
That’s not to say the company is set in its ways, particularly regarding how it sells specials. Last year, it partnered with sightholder Diacore to buy an exceptional 39.35-carat blue rough stone from Petra Diamonds for $40.2 million and share in the profit from the polished. The De Beers Blue, the 15.10-carat, fancy-vivid-blue polished that resulted from that rough, fetched $58.7 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. The two companies also teamed up to buy five blue rough diamonds from Petra in 2020, with the resulting polished stones expected to garner over $70 million at Sotheby’s in November (after press time) and December.
“It’s not difficult as a seller of a small volume of goods to find one buyer who will buy one particular stone at a significant premium to the market — that happens to us all the time,” he adds. “We just don’t publicize it.”
Tech at play
Technology has been the central tool to improve the way De Beers sells rough, Cleaver underlines. He teases that the company will introduce various innovations in the next 12 to 18 months that will be “game changers in how we continue to sell in this evolving market,” but he declined to reveal further information about these developments.
Data is also playing a much more important role in enabling De Beers, and others, to make more rapid decisions than before — and that data-centric strategy is being driven by technology, he notes.
In fact, technology is influencing change across all De Beers business units, Cleaver says. That includes at its mining operations, where it is tackling the challenge to “mine more gently,” using less water and energy to be more environmentally friendly. He also highlights the Tracr program — De Beers’ blockchain-driven traceability platform — which is gaining traction and will enable companies to show the provenance of their De Beers supply.
Building forever
That all feeds into the strong focus on sustainability that De Beers has adopted in recent years and the need to show one’s diamond is ethically sourced. While Cleaver recognized the need to talk about sustainability early in his tenure as CEO, the rapidness with which the subject became a focal point for brands surprised even him.
“I wanted to make sustainability a bigger issue, but I don’t think I realized at the beginning just how important it is,” he admits. “Now ‘Building Forever’ is an absolutely key part of everything we do.”
Building Forever outlines 12 goals De Beers has set to achieve by 2030, encompassing four areas it has identified to make a meaningful impact.
Those are leading ethical practices, partnering for thriving communities, protecting the natural world, and accelerating equal opportunity. “These are vitally important not only to our business, but also to our employees, partners and communities across all facets of our operations,” the company emphasizes on its website.
The program gradually emerged as the core message of the De Beers brand, taking its cues from the rising awareness among millennials and Gen-Zers on issues such as carbon neutrality, climate change, and social upliftment. The program is what distinguishes De Beers, and it provides an opportunity to maximize the value of the brand that was not apparent five years ago, Cleaver says.
Cleaning the mess
The evolution of that message paralleled Cleaver’s advocating for more brands across the industry as well as cleaning up and strengthening the De Beers brand. Key to that development was taking full ownership of its name in early 2017, when it bought the 50% of De Beers Diamond Jewellers (DBDJ) that was owned by LVMH.
“It always felt messy having the De Beers name co-owned by someone else,” he observes. “I’m very pleased we’ve been able to unify the brands into one master brand.”
The company sought to leverage its strong name recognition as much as possible. Most notably that played out at retail with the LVMH deal and subsequently renaming the retail operation De Beers Jewellers (DBJ). It also rebranded Forevermark as De Beers Forevermark, and the strategy extended beyond its retail operations to align the whole group into one “De Beers” corporate identity with a common goal.
“I wanted to define a more holistic business strategy: to run the company as one business rather than three separate silos,” Cleaver shares. “I think we’ve been pretty successful in achieving that.”
Staying brilliant
De Beers previously had a more vertical structure, split between the pillars of mining, rough sales and its retail brands. Over the past half decade, it has morphed into a more integrated end-to-end business with every employee, regardless of which area of the company they work, having the same stated purpose: to “make life brilliant,” Cleaver explains.
As such, the outgoing CEO carefully defines De Beers as a “natural-diamond company” with an integrated structure that encompasses exploration, mining, rough sales, and retail brands. Lightbox, the company’s lab-grown business, is considered an “adjacency” that doesn’t fit into the core business model, he insists.
With that structure in place, Cleaver is confident the company can double-down on innovation – as he claims it did with Tracr and Lightbox — strengthen its relationships with the trade and government, and in doing so, lead the industry on big issues such as sustainability. He hopes to continue to influence that path in his new role as cochairman, through which he will take an active role in engaging with external stakeholders.
“It’s important that De Beers pushes agendas and ideas that might be surprising they came from a big organization,” Cleaver discloses. “But when you look at some of the sustainability work done by retailers and sightholders today, it’s fantastic, and I think that we did have some small influence on that — that was all deliberate.”
The industry will continue to evolve because the world will continue to change quickly, he continues. “I’ve tried hard to always think about what the next trend or the next move should be — and why shouldn’t it be us who makes them? We recognize that when De Beers talks, people do listen,” he concludes.
Brilliant Earth lowered its outlook ahead of the crucial fourth quarter, noting that consumers were hesitant about making purchases.
The online-focused jeweler expects full-year sales of $436 million to $446 million, down from an earlier forecast of $450 million to $470 million, it said Thursday. Fourth-quarter revenue will be between $116 million and $126 million, compared with actual sales of $121.9 million a year earlier. The US company’s shares fell 26% Thursday following the news.
“While we’re pleased that we have continued to drive sustainable, profitable growth, as we look to finish the year, macro headwinds and the anticipated promotional environment are more difficult than earlier in the year, causing us to be more cautious about our fourth-quarter revenue outlook,” CEO Beth Gerstein said on an investor call transcribed by Seeking Alpha. “While we are still seeing strong consumer interest demonstrating the resonance of our brand, we are seeing a further lengthening of the decision-making process given the macroeconomic uncertainty as more customers take a wait-and-see approach.”
The adjustment came even as third-quarter sales rose 17% year on year to $111.4 million, reflecting the brand’s increased success among millennials and Gen Z-ers, the retailer reported. The company ratcheted up its use of TikTok after a study found that 13% of its customers learned about Brilliant Earth on that social platform; this led to a viewership increase on the site of more than 200%, management said. Group net profit jumped 44% to $5.7 million.
Diamonds, Gemstones and precious metals can all be damaged.
Caring for your engagement ring or Jewellery will maintain the quality and beauty.
Rule of thumb is gently cleaning your ring and jewellery every so often with soapy water and light brushing. An Old tooth brush will help get into the hard to reach places.
Visit your Jeweller at least once a year for a ring health check. This should include a check of the strength of the setting and the stability of the stone.
When storing your ring, like during overseas travel, ensure the jewellery is in a secure place.
It is recommend insuring your ring for its full replacement value. If you bought at a reduced price, it may not be possible to replace at the same value in the future.
An engagement ring or heirloom may be a prized possession, with irreplaceable sentimental value. Be Certin it is protected correctly.
When visiting your Jeweller ask for the jewelry to be cleaned.
This is usually done while you wait in an ultra sound cleaner.
Avoid using chemicals or bleach when cleaning your jewelry. Some could damage gems and the finish of the item.
Never use abrasives on precious metals. The finish and integrity could be compromised and require a Jeweller to repair or polish.
All precious metals will lose the high polished shine over time. It is easy for your Jeweller to bring back the shine. Have your Jeweller check the item annually and advise on maintenance.
It is realistic to re-polish Platinum and Gold Jewellery every couple of years to maintain its smooth surface and shine.
White metal may be rhodium plated, this will wear in time and needs to be redone every few years to restore its colour and luster.
This process is inexpensive and will bring back the original look.
Store your jewellery safely.
If you’re not wearing your ring be sure you have a safe or a good lockup place for your ring or jewellery .
Remove your ring during hands-on activities.
Jewellery is easily damaged so avoid wearing the item while doing -heavy handed activities like moving furniture, gardening, lifting weights.
Depending on the type of gem, You may also want to remove your ring when you swim in chemically treated water.
Don’t remove your ring in public.
While it may be tempting to remove your ring while washing your hands, Don’t, it could slide down the drain or you might forget it altogether.
Insuring Your Engagement Ring
Have your ring valued, and have the value checked if the currency rate changes.
Make sure you insure it for its full like for like replacement.
