Diamonds off-the-shoulder and on the ball

The eyes of the world are on South Africa and one local jeweller has cashed in on the attention by coming up with a couple of novelty applications for diamonds.

We’ve blogged about this sort of thing before (diamond iPads, iPhones, cakes, and a diamond Wii), so here we’ll hold back on the comment and simply show you this week’s blinged-up everyday objects. Here they are:

Both of these shiny objects have been brought to the world by SA-based jeweller Shimansky.

For the record, the tattoo features 612 Shimansky Ideal Cut 0.5 carat diamonds, stuck to the model’s skin using a special water-based adhesive in an 8-hour application process, whilst the football is adorned by 6,620 white diamonds and 2,640 black diamonds – a total diamond weight of 3,500 carats.

Reports have valued the tattoo at £640,000 and the football at £1.8 million.

Original post here

www.diamondthrills.co.uk

Sex And The City and the big black diamond

Now I haven't seen the film (not really my thing: I'm a man...), but I've noticed quite a lot of buzz about a black diamond that enjoys a prominent cameo role in Sex And The City 2.

** Spoiler Alert! If you really don't want to know how the film ends then don't read on! **

Still With me? Good.

In the final scene, Big gives Carrie a diamond ring and tells her, "Because you're not like anybody else".

The diamond ring is somewhat unusual in that it features a 5 carat black diamond (pictured, above).

The ring was created by designer Itay Malkin, and in addition to that eye-popping 5 carat black diamond, it features 80 round pavé-set white diamonds weighing a total of 0.35 carats. The diamonds are set in 18 karat white gold.

Black diamonds are unusual but they are becoming more fashionable (and this placement in SATC2 will of course add to their popularity).

The blackness in natural black diamonds is caused by millions of microscopic inclusions spread throughout the stone.

Some natural black diamonds are referred to as carbonado diamonds (a Portuguese word - they were found in Brazil and the Central African Republic), and there was a theory doing the rounds a couple of years ago that these diamonds came from outer space, falling to Earth in a meteor 2.3 billion years ago.

Another theory has it that black diamonds were formed during shock metamorphism - the result of an explosive meteoric impact on the Earth's surface.

More prosaically, black diamonds can be created in a laboratory (although these technically should not be referred to as diamonds) or as a result of special treatments that can be applied to more common non-black diamonds.

In any event, thanks to the inevitable commercial spin-off from the SATC2 movie, fans can buy one of a limited edition of 'identical' rings for $10,000 from designer Itay Malkin or the film's costume designer Patricia Field.

Given that a 5 carat diamond ring would normally cost a lot more than $10,000 (we just checked a leading online supplier, and the minimum price for a 5 carat diamond was over $50,000), we can't help but wonder just how natural and 'diamond-y' these $10,000 rings really are...

We say: Caveat emptor! But then Hollywood is all about illusion, fakery & pretence, right?

Original post here.

www.diamondthrills.co.uk