In this year’s Best of the Best, we continue to honour the brands and people who have continued to create covetable products, even in the midst of a global pandemic. Here, we have Chopard tops its class in stones with its Exceptional Precious Lace earrings
Blue diamonds are famously rare. In fact, fancy-coloured natural diamonds account for just 0.4 per cent of all graded diamonds mined in the last 20 years, and less than a 10th of a per cent of that cache are blue diamonds, according to Grant Mobley, a diamond expert at the Natural Diamond Council. And a matching set of blue diamonds over one carat? Don’t even bother googling, they’re so scarce. These Exceptional Precious Lace earrings live up to their name with a duet of fancy blue and a couple of fancy light-blue diamonds, ranging from 1.02 to 1.57 carats each. Highlighting the treasured stones are 2.42 carats of round and 4.94 carats of pear-shaped white diamonds, set in 18-carat white Fairmined gold in a delicate lace-inspired design.
The singular blue centrepieces within are so prized that they could potentially be the crowning achievement of a collection. “Most blue diamonds found are less than one carat and their rarity increases the larger they are,” says Mobley. “In fact, most jewellers have never seen a natural blue diamond in person. Taking this all into account, you can imagine that finding even two matching blue diamonds over one carat would be a once-in-a-lifetime sight.”
