There is a look and feel to diamond jewelry that its creators, wearers and admirers expect, particularly when it comes to colorless diamonds. They add an instant dose of glamour and refinement to a piece and, more broadly, to an overall look. Even an eccentric, avant-garde piece of jewelry that incorporates different gemstones or metals tends to look more polished, finished and elevated when white diamonds are incorporated into the design.
So what happens when the color palette of diamonds shifts? That was the question for a group of the jewelry industry’s top designers in working with Desert diamonds, the newly launched initiative by A Diamond is Forever that curates a selection of natural diamonds in shades of sunlit champagne, sand, honey, ochre, sunset mocha and myriad other hues of the desert, all chosen to highlight the unique beauty of the desert landscape and its inspiration inherent to the gems.
For many designers, demand for authenticity came first from clients, who were looking for gems that looked more unique and added something new to the narrative of diamond jewelry.
“We started to see an uptick in the demand for stones that have a little bit more warmth to them,” says New York-based designer Stephanie Gottlieb. “It’s fun to introduce some new materials into what we’re doing and keep the silhouettes; you can see the collection in a new light. The deeper browns and the warm tones really bring out something different from a design perspective.”
Gottlieb points to a new multi-row diamond bracelet as the perfect example of how tan-hued Desert diamonds can shine a new light on a more traditional piece of diamond jewelry. The designer incorporated alternating rows of Desert diamonds in ombré shades with white diamond rows, all done in bezel settings that give a sense of geometry to the flexible piece (which was also recently featured on the wrist of Taylor Swift in the cover of her new album The Life of a Showgirl).
“The bezel setting was used so that we could see each shade of brown contrasted against the other,” Gottlieb says. “It was vintage inspired and moves very seamlessly, resting beautifully on the wrist. It’s so nuanced.”
Demand from diamond customers for something unique and authentic was a key driver behind the launch of Desert diamonds, says Sandrine Conseiller, CEO of Brands and Diamond Desirability at De Beers Group.
“The idea of having something that uniquely represents you as a human being is what is driving the emotion of consumers today, and that insight is quite new for the industry,” Conseiller says. “Diamonds are formed by the Earth, given by nature, and you carry that with you when you wear a natural diamond. You’re wearing a piece of nature and Earth’s history with you. Desert diamonds is a way to tell that story again, a story that has maybe been forgotten.”
For Jay Mehta, CEO of Indigo Jewelry, that mindset has created a new way of approaching design. Instead of searching for suites of matching colorless diamonds to fit into a piece, he looks to the singular aspects of diamonds in a range of yellow, tan and brown hues, finding ways to mix them together so that they live in harmony but sit together as fully unique arrangements.
“You have to work back from the design, and it’s not about everything having to look the same. I don’t want to make five rings that look the same,” Mehta says. “We’ve been so programmed to sell jewelry en masse. This has the opportunity for us to bring back the uniqueness and to show that you’re not supposed to have the same piece as your sister or your mom or your friend.”
The unique stone selection inherent to Desert diamonds has created a wave of new trends. Like Gottlieb, many designers have chosen bezel settings to illuminate the variety of Desert diamond hues. Briony Raymond chose a honey-yellow emerald cut diamond to set in a bold bezel ring, while Harwell Godfrey utilized a double-bezel outline for a moi et toi ring with contrasting diamonds in cognac and champagne.
Vanessa Fernández, Mociun, Almasika and Ten Thousand Things were also among the designers and brands exploring how creative versions of a bezel setting can highlight the nuanced shades of Desert diamonds. Grandview Klein’s necklace of bezel-set, honey-yellow diamonds sourced from Namibia and Khepri’s layered necklaces with bezel settings outlining a variety of shapes and cuts of Desert diamonds were perhaps the biggest and boldest examples of the trend.
Some designers turned to the ombré effect of selecting specific Desert diamonds to create a unique color tapestry in pieces. Atit, Wwake, Bernard James, Jade Ruzzo, Jewels with Jules, Michelle Fantaci and Maggi Simpkins all explored how hand-selected diamonds in nuanced hues can take a traditional tennis necklace or pavé motif and make it one-of-a-kind.
Others played with contrast: Nikos Koulis created a pair of drop earrings, mismatched with different hues of Desert diamonds, while William Goldberg, Fred Leighton, Martin Katz and Premier Gem Corp all showcased how traditional diamond jewelry settings can look when honey or whiskey-hued center diamonds contrast with white diamond accents.
But it’s not just traditional motifs that are driving the storytelling of Desert diamonds. Other designers explored how the color palette could add to pieces with highly personalized origin stories. When Lorraine West first collaborated in 2022 with writer and style expert Michaela Angela Davis on her Hot Comb pendant, the symbolism of the piece stood on its own. “It’s so specific to Black American girls and women’s culture; it’s like a talisman that we don’t share with anybody else,” said Davis.
When tasked with reimagining the piece with Desert diamonds, it occurred to West that a new color palette could further add to its cultural legacy.
“The hot comb had a brown wooden handle, and over time, the use of the handle, the mix of the hair pomade with the heat touching the stove, made some parts darker brown, some lighter,” says the designer, who used a mélange of tan-hued diamonds to recreate the image on the handle of the Hot Comb pendant.
Designer Marvin Douglas Linares was also thinking of hair when he created a headband in yellow gold, a comb-style accessory that is pavéd with an ombré mélange of Desert diamonds that follow the curves of the sculptural tines.
Zahn-Z founder and designer Hiba Husayni found her own personal meaning in working with diamonds in shades of sand, amber, cognac, whiskey and cocoa when adding to her architecturally-informed Zaha rings.
“It reflects the beauty of Syria,” says Husayni of her home country. “Especially near my hometown of Homs, we are near the Mediterranean but also near the desert, and near Palmyra. It’s all very powerful to me.”
All of the visionary designers and brands featured in the curated exhibition include Almasika, Aneri, Atit, Bernard James, Bijules, Bliss Lau, Briony Raymond, Casey Perez Jewelry, Fred Leighton, Grandview Klein, Harwell Godfrey, Indigo, Jade Ruzzo, Jade Trau, Jewels with Jules, Kay Jewelers, Khepri, Leigh Maxwell, Le Vian, Lorraine West, Maggi Simpkins, Martin Katz, Marvin Douglas Jewelry, Michelle Fantaci Fine Jewelry, Mociun, Munnu The Gem Palace, Neil Lane, Nikos Koulis, Premier Gem, Retrouvaí, Rosy Blue, Stephanie Gottlieb Fine Jewelry, Ten Thousand Things, Uniform Object, Vale Jewelry, Vanessa Fernández, Vice Versa, William Goldberg, Wwake and Zahn Z.
Shannon Adducci is a writer, editor and jewelry specialist based in New York City. She is currently editor at Dossier magazine and her work has appeared in luxury titles including The New York Times and The Strategist, among others
