Louis Vuitton Buys the World’s Second-Largest Diamond
The prestigious French fashion brand has purchased the 1,758-carat rough Sewelo diamond, which is dark in color and about the size of your palm.
Louis Vuitton, after ruling the world of luxury handbags set its eyes in the world’s jewellery market as it recently purchased the world’s second-largest diamond.
The prestigious French fashion brand has purchased the 1,758-carat rough Sewelo diamond, which is dark in color and about the size of your palm. Lucara Diamond Corporation found the diamond in the month of April 2019 from Karowe mine in Botswana. The diamond company has also struck a deal with the luxury brand for a tennis ball-sized gem.
The mining company has later named it as “Sewelo,” which means ‘rare find’ in the southern African Tswana language.
Chief executive of Louis Vuitton, Michael Burke, has confirmed the news of buying the diamond but didn’t reveal the exact price of the rock but said their move is going to surprise some of their key competitors. Burke said, “Nobody expected us to put such an emphasis on high jewellery. I think it will spice things up a bit. Wake up the industry.”
LVMH, the parent company of Luis Vuitton, has also acquired the American luxury jewellry company Tiffany & Co. for USD 16.2 billion recently.
Marcel Pruwer who was once associated with Antwerp Diamond Exchange, as its President has estimated the cost of the second-largest diamond is around USD 50 million. Though the estimated final value of the Sewelo diamond will depend on several factors such as the size, the color, clarity and how it can be cut.
But if previous sales are anything to go by then it could be in the tens of millions of dollars. In the year 2017, the Lesedi La Rona sold for $53 million to luxury jeweler Graff Diamonds.
Lucara has also come up along with HB Company, a Belgian diamond manufacturer and entered in collaboration with Louis Vuitton to manufacture as well as polish a number of smaller jewels from the Sewelo diamond, according to the official press release, released recently.
According to the release “The purpose of this unprecedented collaboration between a miner, a cutting-edge manufacturer and a large luxury brand will be the planning, cutting and polishing of a collection of diamonds from Sewelo”. It also added that the full potential of the stone will only be revealed after it has been polished.
Meanwhile, Lucara CEO Eira Thomas in her press statement said, “We are delighted to be partnering with Louis Vuitton, the famous luxury house, to transform the historic, 1,758-carat Sewelo, Botswana’s largest diamond, into a collection of fine jewellery that will commemorate this extraordinary discovery and contribute direct benefits to our local communities of interest in Botswana”.
When the Sewelo diamond was discovered, it took away the title of being the second-largest diamond in the human history from the 1,111-carat diamond, popularly known as Lesedi La Rona. The diamond was also unearthed from the same mine in Botswana.
The only ever-larger diamond unearthed on earth was the 3,106-carat Cullinan Diamond, which was discovered in South Africa in the year 1905. The Cullinan was later cut into smaller stones, some of which still forms part of the British royal family’s crown jewels.
