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| Passion Investments: Gems & Jewelry |
A Dazzling Palette
Catherine Curan
01/01/2008
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Jean Mahie never cared much for
gemstones until she set eyes on a box of colored diamonds two decades ago.
Mahie, a jewelry designer and a member of France’s Mazard fashion clan, says the
epiphany came when she was visiting Neiman Marcus in Dallas to meet with jewelry
department head Dudley Ramsden about her 22-karat gold designs, which the
retailer has long sold on an exclusive basis. Ramsden showed her something
special: a collection of 50 colored diamonds that the store was offering for
sale on behalf of a private collector. The gemstones were only about a carat
each—so small that they would scarcely have rated a second glance had they been
ordinary white diamonds. Yet Mahie, also a watercolor artist, saw a dazzling
palette in the rainbow of 50 hues. "I will never forget that box," she says.
 | THE AURORA Collection features almost 300 diamonds in a vast
range of brilliant hues. (Photograph by The Aurora Collection (of natural color diamonds), Natural
History Museum London, R. Weldon.) |
Mahie’s father-in-law, who made a fortune from owning a chain
of maternity stores and began working with Mahie on luxury jewelry in 1969,
tried to buy the stones, but could not secure a deal with the collector. So
Ramsden, the person responsible for getting Mahie hooked, referred her to New York diamond consultant Alan Bronstein as a reputable alternative source.
Even a noncollector might be aware of Bronstein’s Aurora
Collection of 296 colored gems, named after the aurora borealis. He exhibited
the diamonds at the American Museum of Natural History from 1989 to 2005 and now
houses them at London’s Natural History Museum. Bronstein has been chasing
colored—also known as "fancy"—diamonds for 25 years. He had his own moment of
revelation at the sight of a 5-carat diamond from Belgium in canary yellow. He
says it was like seeing a rainbow for the first time. Yellow diamonds are the
most abundant colored diamonds, but the richness of a true canary stone, as
bright as the bird’s feathers, set him on a quest to capture as many other
intoxicating colors as he could, using a combination of his own funds, outside
financing and the backing of his business partner, Harry Rodman.
Diamonds in various hues have enthralled the elite ever since
Louis XIV took possession of a 112-carat, dark-blue stone from India in
1668; it later became the legendary Hope diamond. Only in the last decade or so
have colored diamonds developed a serious following among collectors, however.
In addition to Bronstein’s museum loans, massive marketing efforts by Argyle and
DeBeers and a dernier cri among celebrities have turned these stones from a
curiosity for connoisseurs into a coveted high-fashion item. When Mahie started
wearing rings and bracelets of her own design with colored diamonds, people
often mistook them for semiprecious stones, judging her red diamond to be a
poor-quality ruby.
 | A PINK diamond from Australia’s Argyle mine. (Photograph by Rio Tinto Diamonds.) |
Such naiveté is much less likely today. The Harry Winston
6.1-carat pink-diamond engagement ring that Ben Affleck gave Jennifer Lopez in
2002 helped create a trend that outlasted the couple’s two-year engagement. That
same year, when Halle Berry won the Best Actress Oscar, an astute observer would
have noticed her pinky ring with the Pumpkin diamond, a 5.54-carat, pure orange
diamond (an extremely rare color) on loan from Harry Winston. Luciano Pavarotti
succumbed to their allure and splurged on a $500,000 radiant-cut pink diamond
from Calleija Jewelers in Australia for his wife during his farewell tour there
in 2005.
Color Me Mine
Mahie herself now owns some 30 colored diamonds, which she has
set in rings or bracelets. "I never make necklaces, because I cannot see them,"
she says. Only once in a while, when she feels her collection has grown too
large, does she sell one of her prized diamonds, and usually that is
to someone she knows, so that she can see the stone again. She likes
emerald cuts that allow her to see through the stone as if it were water, and
gravitates toward offbeat colors, such as violet or gray, that others
might overlook in favor of deep or vivid pinks.
She shows off one of her prize rings, with a purplish-red
octagonal diamond from the Argyle mine in Western Australia. The stone is only
half a carat, but red diamonds are the rarest of the rare, and like most, this
one cost six figures. It has an open setting so light can shine through it.
Mahie says she made the ring five minutes after acquiring the stone.
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