White diamonds no-longer provide enough bling for many high profile celebs and business magnets. These days the luxury jewellery item at the top of most star´s Christmas list is a coloured diamond. The Diamond Store explains.
When sex siren Marilyn Monroe famously wobbled that´Diamonds Are a Girl´s Best Friend’, she was seen as the height of glamour as she cavorted around in head-to-toe crisp, white diamond jewellery. Had Miss Monroe been alive today however, she may have been sporting an altogether different look. Once considered the ultimate symbol of luxury, the now regular, white diamond is being pushed gently to one side by celebrities and millionaires alike in favour of its racier, and altogether rarer, cousins.
Coloured diamonds are becoming increasingly en vogue not only because of their breath-taking beauty but because their rarity makes for sound financial investment. Having increased in value by an astonishing 300 per cent over the last couple of years, the jet set are clambering over each other to snap up each new collection as it comes out. The trend was initially started by Jennifer Lopez and her $1 million dollar pink diamond engagement ring, given to her by then fiancee Ben Afleck. Since that momentous occasion everyone from Kate Moss to Beyonce has been keen to get in on the action.
Gary Ingram, Managing Director of The Diamond Store, the UK´s largest independent online jewellers, said: "These are people for whom money is not an issue. They have everything they could possibly want so what they´re looking for is something they know not many others have. Owning a pair of diamond drop earrings or an eternity ring made with coloured diamonds makes them feel exclusive."
To highlight just how exclusive these diamonds area, only 1 per cent of diamonds mined by The Argyle Mine in Western Australian, where 90 per cent of the world´s pink diamonds, are pink or green. In total, only 1 out of every 10,000 carats of diamonds mined worldwide every year are coloured, that´s just 0.001 per cent of the overall amount, so it’s easy to see why they have become so valuable.
Each colour is created as a result of a different, naturally occurring process. An excess of a particular gas is usually found such as nitrogen in yellow diamonds, boron in blue, manganese in pink and red and carbon in black, while green diamonds are thought to be caused by an exposure to naturally present radioactive elements such as uranium. Red diamonds are the rarest of all, with only 20 known examples in existence, and as such are virtually priceless, while brown, grey and black are the most common.
Ingram said: “For those without a superstar’s salary, there are artificially created coloured diamonds. Alternatively gemstone jewellery makes a great alternative and has the added bonus of being symbolic as birthstones.”
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