Publish Year: 2016 Title: Book Review: Swarovski: Celebrating a History of Collaboration in Fashion, Jewelry, Performance and Design Abstract: By Deborah Landis and Vivienne Becker, hardcover, 352 pp., illus., publ. by Rizzoli, New York, NY, 2015, US$95.00.

	This book is sumptuous in its presentation. Its production quality is elegant from the silver cardstock end papers to the beautiful photography and fancy gatefold spreads. It will display nicely on your coffee table, weighing in at a whopping six pounds.

	Beyond the dazzling first impression, the value of the book is really in the eye of the beholder. If you are looking for an in-depth history of the use of Swarovski crystals in jewelry, or even simply a look at the firm’s contemporary jewelry output, this book may not be for you. The photographs are gorgeous and the creations divine, but the text lacks in substance.

	The book is divided into four sections: Fashion, Jewelry, Performance, and Design. The jewelry section has a nice essay by noted jewelry historian Vivienne Becker. It is oddly printed on mini pages and bound in front of the oversize pages containing images of the jewelry. It seems to say the story is less important than the imagery. And the jewelry pieces shown are over-the-top creations rather than a representative gallery of the Swarovski crystals used in jewelry since the end of the 19th century. Is it really necessary to show a high-style ring fashioned of Swarovski crystals as a 10 in. × 12.5 in. photo? The essay itself is a useful discussion of Swarovski’s role in establishing the costume jewelry world. But the author’s voice is not continued throughout the many images that are shown through captions, which would have been useful.

	It is great fun to see Michael Jackson’s crystal-covered glove, pieces created for major fashion houses, the original crystal chandelier lighting commissioned for the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, and more. Yet this book offers little information for those interested in jewelry specifically. The jewelry actually depicted in this book consists mostly of one-of-a-kind pieces worn on the runway or sold to an elite audience through couture houses, not jewelry most of us will ever see. @topic:6


Publish Year: 2016 Title: Book Review: Cartier Royal High Jewelry and Precious Objects Abstract: By François Chaille, 260 pp., hardcover, publ. by Flammarion S.A., Paris, 2014, US $125.00.

	With glossy paper, beautiful photographs, and sizeable heft, Cartier Royal High Jewelry and Precious Objects appears at first glance to be another lush and colorful coffee table book. But it is so much more! A photo gallery of 100 jeweled creations made for the 2014 season comprise this biennial catalog, along with a narrative history focusing on royal jewels and their connection with Cartier over the firm’s entire existence.

	Cartier’s 168-year history has been linked with royalty and aristocracy since the influential Princess Mathilde, niece of Napoleon Bonaparte, started purchasing items from the jewelry house in 1859. English royalty also enjoyed Cartier’s services. After the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, a flood of orders came into the Cartier headquarters in anticipation of the 1902 coronation of Edward VII. In 1904, Edward’s consort, Queen Alexandra, awarded Cartier the title of official supplier to the English court. Not content with supplying the most illustrious families in Western Europe, Cartier traveled to Russia in 1907 at the encouragement of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna. Over the course of two months during the fall and winter season of that year, the company gained the attention of the tsar and tsarina and other members of the Russian court. Although business at first was tentative, two years later Cartier was appointed an official supplier to the Russian Imperial Court; until the Russian Revolution in 1917, they served as jewelry supplier to a significant portion of the Russian gentry.

	It was during the later years of the 19th century and first years of the 20th century, as it gained popularity with the European royal families, that Cartier’s “garland” style was developed. Royalty and the general public alike met this signature form with great appreciation. The use of platinum for jewelry settings during this time period was in part due to the firm’s innovative casting techniques, exploiting the hard metal’s ability to form with great airiness and finesse. This infinitely light and delicate style coincided with what has been called the Edwardian era, and is now referred to as the Beaux Arts period.

	In 1911 Jacques Cartier traveled to the Indian subcontinent to buy gemstones and connect with wealthy Indian maharajahs, resulting in some of the most lavish pieces Cartier has ever produced, including a choker-style necklace for the Maharaja of Patiala, featuring ruby cabochons, natural pearls, and diamonds set in platinum. Connoisseurship of colored gemstones began at this time and continues to be a hallmark of Cartier style. Connections to the wealthiest families in the world fed the house’s reputation and set the firm up to receive the newest form of royalty: movie stars. Elizabeth Taylor was a devoted fan, and had Cartier mount the famous La Peregrina pearl in a double-strand natural pearl choker intersected with diamond and ruby quatrefoils, with an additional diamond and ruby flame pendant connecter. Merle Oberon was another Cartier devotee. Almost as famous for her jewels as for her acting talents, perhaps her most noteworthy piece was a necklace of drop baroque emeralds accented by numerous small diamonds.

	Exceptional gems are noted in a chapter on Cartier jewelry inspired by these worldly treasures. So many famous gems have passed through the firm’s hands, including the Hope, Pasha diamond, and Williamson Pink diamonds. Colored gems are also given their due and include the Berenice emerald, Queen Marie of Spain’s 478.68 ct faceted blue sapphire, and the Nawanagar necklace, featuring 119 Burmese rubies and totaling 210 carats of crimson perfection.

	The book’s photography is superb and highlights all the features you would want to find in jeweled pieces of wearable art. Rare archival photographs add so much to the text, allowing the reader to visualize the personalities that were active Cartier clients. The one criticism that I have with this book is the print. It is frustrating for older eyes to focus on the very small and light gray type; I would hope in the future that this feature could be improved. This book is an excellent choice for anyone with an interest in Cartier, royal jewels, jewelry history, or jewelry design. @topic:6


Publish Year: 2015 Title: Books: Maker & Muse: Women and Early Twentieth Century Art Jewelry Abstract: By Elyse Zorn Karlin, Ed., hardcover, 256 pp., publ. by Monacelli Press, New York, 2015, US$50.00.

Maker & Muse: Women and Early Twentieth Century Art Jewelry is a collaborative effort undertaken to accompany the current exhibit of the same name at the Richard H. Driehaus Museum in Chicago. Its 256 pages celebrate the role of women as creator of and inspiration for important jewelry from the turn of the 19th century. It showcases the history of women as jewelry designers, as muses portrayed on the jeweler’s canvas, and as wearers of the art during the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau movements.

	This beautifully illustrated book contains seven well-organized chapters full of insight on the period, covering the British, German, Austrian, and American Arts and Crafts movements from 1890 to 1910 and the French and American Art Nouveau movements from 1900 to 1915. Museum founder Richard H. Driehaus, who owns the majority of the pieces on display, wrote the preface. While collecting decorative arts 15 years ago, he was drawn to a piece of Arts and Crafts jewelry in London. His collection blossomed from there to include Art Nouveau jewelry.

	The first two chapters are by the book’s editor and the curator of the exhibit, Elyse Zorn Karlin. Her first chapter is an overview of the women and their jewelry in the early 20th century. Karlin follows with the British Arts and Crafts Movement, which advocated economic and social reform, which is essentially anti-industrial. As a result, there was a greater emphasis on the finished piece art rather than materials.

	The next four chapters are essays by the expert curators who had a hand in the other four exhibition rooms at the Driehaus. Each chapter is embellished with remarkable photos of pertinent jewelry and their makers and muse. “Metamorphosis: The Female Figure in Art Nouveau” is written by Yvonne J. Markowitz, curator emerita of the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, and Emily Banis Stoehrer, curator of jewelry at the same museum. They explain that Art Nouveau jewelry, designed by men (most notably Rene Lalique) and worn by women, is the French high-end answer to the Arts and Crafts movement. The jewels are about natural forms and structures, flowers, plants, and curved lines.  Jeannine Falino, an independent curator for the Museum of Art and Design in New York, writes the next chapter on the American art of Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose design staff included Julia Munson and Meta Overbeck. These women held the jewelry to the highest standards of artistry and quality. Tiffany branded his products, and the executors became mostly anonymous.

	Janis Staggs, author and curator of Neue Galerie in New York, documents the Arts and Crafts movement in Germany and Austria, known as Jugendstil or “youth style,” which brought about a shift in women’s social status as workers, patrons, suffragettes, athletes, artists, and muses.   Well-known designers Josef Hoffman and Karl Rothmuller, along with artist Gustav Klimt, are contributors to this period. Sharon S. Darling, author of Chicago Metalsmiths: An Illustrated History, writes about the Chicago Arts and Crafts movement, where a large number of women worked as professional and amateur jewelers. Of particular note is the hand-wrought Kalo silver workshop, which was founded by six women graduates of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1900.

	The photography, principally by John A. Faier, the editing, and the quality of the paper and printing are superb. This book will find its way into the libraries of scholars, collectors, and professionals interested in the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau movements, which still influence jewelry artists more than a century later. @topic:6


Publish Year: - Title: Spring 2015 G&G Examines Blue Spinel, Chinese Jewelry Design and the Latest in Synthetics Abstract: The lead article in this issue examines the geological and gemological characteristics of blue spinel from Luc Yen, Vietnam. The centerpiece of the 18k yellow gold ring from the Love Doves collection is a 4.95 ct. marquise-cut spinel, framed on either side by doves with ruby eyes. Photo by Robert Weldon/GIA, courtesy of Loretta Castoro. The gem-quality blue spinel octahedron associated with olivine in marble matrix was seen at a mine in the Luc Yen district. Photo by Vincent Pardieu/GIA. Composite image by Kevin Schumacher.

The Spring 2015 issue of Gems & Gemology features an array of reports from around the globe and a cover article on one of the major sources of blue spinel: Luc Yen in Vietnam.
Blue spinel is rare in nature and not well-known in world gem markets, but its color rivals that of sapphire. Luc Yen, located about 100 miles from Hanoi, has been a source for gem-quality ruby, sapphire and red spinel for the past 25 years. Blue spinel is a more recent discovery, not mined in significant quantities until a decade ago. The gems come from three deposits and are hard-won, requiring a four-hour hike, rising 1,800 feet through dense foliage to reach the mine sites.

In primary deposits, the blue spinel crystals are found in a marble layer some 1,500-feet thick. Miners – primarily local farmers working part time – extract it using hand tools and jackhammers. However, most of the blue spinels, along with their red counterparts, are found in secondary deposits, where they eroded out of their host rocks and washed into the valleys. Here, the miners use a water hose and sluice to sort out the gem-bearing gravels, which can also include ruby and sapphire.

The authors (Boris Chauvire, Benjamin Rondeau, Emmanuel Fritsch, Phillipe Ressigeac and Jean Lu-Luc Devidal) conducted extensive gemological analyses of samples they purchased from local merchants. The colors and saturation varied from deposit to deposit, but ranged from violet-blue to blue and slightly grayish to vivid saturation, and very light to medium-dark tone. Analysis found the most vibrant blue colors came from trace amounts of cobalt, which is similar to blue spinel from some other locations. In addition, the authors present a lot of information on the geology along with a hypothesis on the gems’ geologic origin.

The Chinese Soul in Contemporary Jewelry Design

This diamond and emerald bracelet is from Dickson Yewn’s “Lock of Good Wishes” collection. The four corners of the lock panel are decorated with simplified bat patterns, which symbolize good luck and happiness in Chinese culture. The clasp is a realistic recreation of an ordinary gate lock from ancient China. The concept is typically used in baby jewelry to make the wearer feel blessed throughout life, and Yewn has successfully applied it to adult pieces. Photo courtesy of Dickson Yewn
Historically, Chinese culture - and jewelry design/tastes - was known for its dragon, bamboo and phoenix motifs, as well as its symbolic writing for millennia. Today, China is the world’s second largest jewelry market with a growing penchant for brand names and luxury. GIA staff authors, Andrew Lucas, Merilee Chapin, Moqing Lin and Xiaodan Jia profile six designers whose work incorporates traditional motifs and materials with modern sensibilities, combined with traditional Chinese and Western techniques.

		Hong Kong designer Dickson Yewn incorporates traditional door lock motifs and lattice windows in his emerald pieces. The lock motif in the bracelet is meant to symbolize health and happiness to the wearer. The window lattice ring design was patterned after the Classical Gardens of Suzhou, and was worn by Michelle Obama at a banquet honoring Queen Elizabeth.

		Master Jingyi Bai, who learned her craft from master goldsmiths, creates traditional filigree and inlay art objects. She also creates replicas of historic pieces in the style of the old masters.

		Taiwanese designer Yue-Yo Wang incorporates ancient art of knotting into modern-styled pieces that feature colored gemstones such as rose quartz, chalcedony, tourmaline and, of course, jadeite. Jadeite is one of the strongest traditions in Chinese jewel craft and Shanghai designer Kaka Zhang creates jadeite pieces of traditional fairy tale characters that she markets mainly online.

		Shirley Zhang, working from Shenzhen, creates highly intricate pieces that combine ancient motifs and innovative techniques, such as gem setting that enables more light to pass through the stones.One of her award winning pieces, “Dancing on Flowers,” features 1,002 colored stones and 4,986 small diamonds in a suite of three pieces featuring blossoms and bees to symbolize diligence and beauty.

		Jin Ren, of Beijing, bases some of his designs on mythological characters such as the Monkey King. He created a suite of jewels with colorless, yellow and black diamond arranged in a snakeskin motif to symbolize renewal, as when a snake sheds his skin.

Amethyst from Boudi, Morocco

Amethyst is one of the most popular gemstones in world markets, and authors Fabrizio Troilo, Abdelghani El Harfi, Salahaddine Mouaddib, Erica Bittarello and Emanuele Costa, from the Instituto Gemmologico Italiano and universities in Italy and Morocco, examined material from the Boudi area of Morocco that is being commercially mined.

While much of the Boudi production has color and properties similar to amethyst found in other parts of the world, it does produce some fine reddish-purple gems that resemble top-quality from classic deposits.

Visible Absorption Spectra of Colored Diamonds

GIA researchers Dr. James Shigley and Dr. Christopher Breeding present a review of the absorption features of yellow, pink to red, gray to blue and orange to brown diamonds.

Colorless diamonds have few or no trace elements or growth defects (such as misaligned crystal structure) to absorb certain colors of the spectrum from the light that passes through them, so the light returned is “white.” Elements such as nitrogen and boron, however, absorb certain colors of the spectrum, so the light returned is yellow or blue. Other factors can also cause diamond color. Natural or artificial radiation displaces some of the carbons atoms from the crystal structure of the diamond to create vacancies that cause green color.

The authors created a color chart that shows visible absorption spectra for a range of colored diamonds to serve as a reference tool for researchers and gemologists.

Mozambique: A Ruby Discovery for the 21st Century

The final full article is from a G&G staff field trip to the Montepuez ruby deposit in Mozambique. The article details the geology of the area that has produced the largest ruby find in recent history and how the rough gems are mined, sorted and graded for sale. The authors, Merilee Chapin, Vincent Pardieu and Andrew Lucas, detail the nature of the rubies in comparison with those from other sources.

Lab Notes

The chameleon diamond is shown before and after heating (left and right).
This issue features an entry on techniques for identifying very small synthetic diamonds using a microscope equipped with a Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer. The report notes that GIA has seen a surge in faceted melee goods submitted for identification. Combining the FTIR spectrometer with the microscope has enabled GIA researchers to get accurate spectra readings for diamonds as small as .00054 carats. It had been difficult to retrieve proper spectra for diamonds under .01 carat (ct.) before this, because readings were often indistinct and had to be taken while the diamond was in a set position. This set-up allows clear readings to be taken independently of a diamond’s position whether mounted in jewelry or loose.

The above method was also used to examine a pendant holding 118 diamonds, including 58 fancy yellows and 60 colorless stones. GIA staff found one HPHT grown synthetic weighing .00431 ct. Nearly all of the other diamonds were natural type 1aA or type 1aAB.

In Hong Kong, GIA recently examined two large synthetic colorless diamonds, submitted with full disclosure by a Russian producer. One was a 4.30 ct. D SI1; the other a 5.11 ct. K I1. Both were HPHT grown and contained distinctive metallic inclusions. The quality and size of these diamonds demonstrates that HPHT synthetic technology has made great strides in recent years.

GIA staff in New York examined two chameleon diamonds, a 0.35 ct. Fancy Deep yellow-green and a 0.27 ct. Fancy Deep grayish yellowish green marquise cuts. Spectral analysis revealed that these diamonds were irradiated to enhance their body color – a process not usually performed on chameleon stones.

Additional GIA lab notes include an analysis of a large (13.69 mm x 11.80 mm) fine color Quahog pearl with very good symmetry and shape; a report on large specimens of pink and reddish purple cobaltocalcite; a diamond that contains a tiny diamond inclusion that formed in a different geologic environment; and conservation concerns over use of a natural large saltwater clam shell (Tridacna) beads in imitation pearls as all species in this family of mollusks are listed in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). @topic:2


Publish Year: - Title: Appreciation for Art, Antiques Leads to Love of Jewelry Abstract: April Matteini earned her GIA Graduate Gemologist diploma in 2000. Courtesy of April Matteini.

	April Matteini’s passion for the decorative arts has propelled her from European museums to Miami showrooms.

	Matteini, the regional director for Skinner, Inc. in Florida, says her love of art and antiques took hold at an early age, so she studied furniture, paintings, sculpture, and silver in Florence, Italy after earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts from St. Lawrence University in New York.

	Her skills in circa dating and cataloging paved the way to her first job with Skinner, Inc. in Boston, where she cataloged antique and estate jewelry for four annual auctions. Next, she joined the Northeastern powerhouse J & SS DeYoung, a fifth-generation family firm specializing in rare, unique jewelry and gemstones.

	“Handling so many incredible pieces was what sparked my love for diamonds and gemstones – I knew then I wanted to earn a Graduate Gemologist (GG) diploma to make those foundations stronger and enhance my career opportunities,” says Matteini, a Massachusetts native.

	She found a kindred spirit in Joe Samuel, a former member of the GIA Board of Governors, as she began to work toward her GG diploma to take her career “to a higher level.”

	“I was mentored by Mr. Samuel, who was incredibly supportive and encouraged my gemological studies,” she says. “I was a distance education student before the Internet, and he encouraged me to attend lab classes in New York and Boston, and use all of the office laboratory equipment for my homework.”

	Though “diamond grading and its terminology felt like mastering a new language,” Matteini persisted and earned her GG diploma in 2000. She soon saw that the benefits of her education extended further than she expected.

	“I find GIA is not only an industry standard, but recognized by consumers as a name they can trust,” she says.

	Matteini and her family – her husband, Francesco, and their two children – relocated to South Florida in 2005, and the self-avowed “New Englander at heart” discovered that as an independent appraiser, her new clients’ jewelry collections had a different flair.

	“Miami is a vibrant, multicultural city,” she says. “Big, colorful, statement pieces are everywhere. I don’t see as much small, antique jewelry in Miami as in the Northeast. That said, big or small, I find the same sentimental attachment and love of jewelry everywhere.”

	Matteini embraced the “fantastic weather” and big personality of her new home, and joined her local GIA Alumni chapter. In 2011, she began her tenure as president of the GIA Alumni of South Florida.

	The group has “joined forces” with the local AGS Guild, she says, and together they “form one organization that serves local industry professionals with high-level educational meetings and networking events.” Recently, for example, they brought Cigdem Lule and Stuart Robertson – fellow GG’s, and experts from GemWorld – from Chicago to present the group with their workshops on corundum and cultured pearls treatments and pricing.

	“Continuing education is the best way to ensure a competitive edge in this industry – access to current information is critical,” Matteini stresses. “Beyond classroom education, the relationships that develop from a GIA affiliation are an invaluable asset for building a successful business.”

	In addition to increasing professional development opportunities for GIA and AGS alumni in her area and her work with Skinner, she still enjoys the beauty and mystique that drew her to jewelry appraisal in the first place.

	Not long ago, a client brought her entire jewelry collection for Matteini to appraise, including a flea-market cuff bracelet that was “just along for the ride.”

	The $25 bracelet turned out to be a valuable piece signed by Art Smith, a leading mid-20th century modernist jeweler. It was very similar to a bracelet on the cover of the Brooklyn Museum’s retrospective exhibit on the New York City-based jeweler, and Matteini says the piece was “quite a nice return on her (client’s) investment.”

	This kind of find reminds Matteini of a key reason she pursued a career in antique and estate jewelry in the first place.

	“I have a tremendous appreciation for diamonds and gemstones, but I still love a jewelry mystery,” Matteini says. “If I can successfully research a hallmark or identify a signature for a client and let them know that their jewelry is not just special to them, but it’s valuable as well – I love that.”

	South Florida Alumni Chapter members with recent presenters, and fellow Graduate Gemologists, Cigdem Lule and Stuart Robertson of Gem World. (Back row: Luke Moorman, John Moorman; Front row: Debra LeVasseur, Joe Kientzy, Amy Walter, April Matteini, Cigdem Lule, Stuart Robertson) Courtesy of April Matteini. @topic:6


Publish Year: - Title: A New World of Glamour:  Former Model Launches Fine Jewelry Brand Abstract: Talk about persistence.

Vania Leles earned her GG from GIA in London in 2004 and promptly sent her curriculum vitae to Graff Diamonds on Bond Street for her dream job.

She sent it again … and again … and again.

The 15th time was the charm and she got a call for an interview.

“It was the only place I wanted to work,” she said. “Knowing what you want -- and why -- is important. Being persistent was key and led me to a wonderful career.”

Leles, a former fashion model who used to jet-set around the world for photo shoots and fashion shows, switched careers because she couldn’t resist the draw of diamonds and fine jewelry. Her interest in gems dates back to her memories of playing with her mother’s collection as a little girl.

“The seven years I spent as a model working in London, New York and Paris with couturiers, stylists and fashionistas exposed me to the world of exquisitely designed fine jewellery,” she said. “I was compelled [to change careers] by the fact that these beautiful pieces were made with vibrant and exciting stones.”

She was an in-house gemologist and brand ambassador for Graff, where she gained invaluable experience sourcing fine high-end jewelry for the design house’s exclusive clientele.

“Working with such valuable pieces gave me a keen eye for identifying and appreciating the rarest and most beautiful diamonds and gemstones in the world,” she said.

She credits her GIA education with giving her the essential skills she needed to embark on her gem and jewelry career, including being able to talk about the 4Cs in depth with clients.

“GIA empowered me and gave me the confidence to negotiate and engage with clients,” she said. “You need to transmit knowledge when negotiating. They need to feel secure that you know you understand your product.”

After two years at Graff, which is essentially a family-owned business, she decided she wanted to experience corporate structure and went to De Beers to create bespoke jewelry and source fine investment-purpose diamonds for clients, including royalty.

Three years later, she set her sights on the auction houses to gain expertise with all periods of jewelry. She was invited to join the Jewellery Department at Sotheby's, where she oversaw and participated in auctioning some of the world's most prestigious diamond and gemstone pieces, including the sale of the magnificent jewels of the Duchess of Windsor.

Leles appreciated the insight earned at these iconic jewelry businesses, but knew she wanted to launch her own company, so Vanleles Diamonds opened for business in 2011.

“I felt privileged to have been trusted enough to work in such fine companies, but I knew that ultimately my destiny was to source my own diamonds and gems -- and design my own jewelry for my trusted circle of clients,” she said. “Vanleles Diamonds is a labor of love.”

Her clients range from bankers and entrepreneurs in the tech industry, to fashion stylists and at least one member of a royal family.

“My clients look for quality, a jeweler they can trust and good value for his/her hard-earned money,” she said. “They are typically heavily involved in the fine details of the specifications and design of the piece and expect excellence service.”

Leles took some of GIA’s design courses, so she sketches ideas as she meets with clients to capture their concepts on paper.

“I have been fortunate enough to work with some of the most talented designers and craftsmen in the world and this has really helped me find my own voice as a jeweler,” she said. “We take the time to really get to know our client’s lifestyle and needs to create truly unique pieces of jewelry. Our passion is to create something personal and exceptional that tells a story within the client’s budget and requirements.”

Leles’ day starts at 7:30 a.m. with a quick jog, some strong coffee and getting up to speed on her trusted MacBook Air. She updates Vanleles Diamonds’ social media channels and checks the prices of precious metals and diamonds. Done with the computer, she makes her way to her workshop to check in with the master craftsmen working on their latest designs.

“I normally have my first client appointments by 11a.m. in our Belgravia studio and spend the rest of the day with clients, showing them a selection of the diamonds we’ve sourced that week and sketching jewelry that reflects their wishes.”

Leles, who was born in Guinea-Bissau, on the West African Coast, is proud of the fact that her company only buys conflict-free diamonds and is supporting the economic growth of Botswana and Namibia.

Ultimately, it is clear Leles’ persistence paid off.

“I love every aspect of my job – from sourcing rare, precious and ethical diamonds, to spending time with our clients to get the design absolutely perfect, to the pride of being able to deliver a true masterpiece of jewelry,” Leles said. “I love to be able to exceed our clients’ expectations of the amazing beauty of our products and the great value we offer.” @topic:6


Publish Year: - Title: Thai Designers Draw Inspiration from Tradition, Heritage for Jewelry Contest Abstract: View Gallery

Fresh. Exciting. Innovative.

	These are just a few words used to describe the nearly 300 designs submitted to the “Create Your Own Legacy” jewelry design challenge hosted by GIA in Bangkok.

	The contest, which opened mid-2013, encouraged designers of all experience levels to be inspired by the cultural legacy of Thailand. The result? A bounty of jewelry sketches inspired by native flowers, mangrove trees and other symbols of Thailand as varied as the designers who created them – from college students and jewelry enthusiasts to jewelry professionals.

	The five-month process – organized to commemorate the 20-year anniversary of GIA in Bangkok – was an opportunity for Thai designers to showcase their talent, expand their gemological knowledge and work alongside prominent jewelry companies Beauty Gems, Blue River, Fadamas, Mouawad and Sette. The finalists were also awarded prizes and scholarships for GIA design, gemology and jewelry programs. The first place designer earned a scholarship for the on-campus Graduate Gemologist program and a trip to the Hong Kong International Jewellery and Gem Show in March 2014.

	“The Bangkok community has been a gracious and hospitable host to GIA for 20 years. This contest was an opportunity to give something back to the jewelry industry here,” said Kenneth Scarratt, GIA managing director of South East Asia and director of the laboratory in Bangkok.

	Entries were reviewed by a panel of judges that included industry experts and respected members of the community. The group selected 21 designers to advance to the next step of the contest: an intensive gemological workshop at the Bangkok campus specifically created to further develop the participants’ knowledge of diamonds and gemstones, as well as to strengthen their design capabilities.

	Participants at the three-day gemological workshop at the GIA campus in Bangkok show their design sketches. Photos by GIA

	Finalist Songsak Sirimartpornchai of Bangkok, a jewelry designer with more than 18 years of experience, said the workshop helped him learn more about the types of gems to select for his jewelry pieces. “I will use the knowledge I learned in this class for future designs as well,” he said.

	Once they completed the workshop, the designers were asked to either develop their original work further or submit a new sketch for the next round of judging, taking care to incorporate colored gemstones in their designs.

	Another finalist, Sutattar Chanrungrojne, from Ayutthaya, Thailand, designed a necklace, cuff and earring set inspired by a practical baking tool.

	“People often find inspiration from beautiful objects, but I wanted to think differently,” she said. “Banana leaves, which don’t always look appealing, are very useful in the traditional Thai way of life. They are often used for baking food and desserts instead of tinfoil or parchment papers.”

	Sutattar Chanrungrojne was inspired by banana leaves when she designed “Baitong,” a necklace, cuff bracelet and earring set. Contestants worked with jewelry companies to manufacture their designs (left) into tangible jewelry pieces.

	Her sketch, which features vibrant green gems, was chosen as one of the top five designs.

	The five finalists had the opportunity to work directly with jewelry companies to manufacture their designs into finished pieces that were then reviewed by the judging panel. The winner’s designs were announced at a presentation ceremony at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center in late 2013.

	The first place winner, Nattawat Srinoon, of Nakhon sri thammarat, Thailand, designed pieces inspired by traditional Thai textiles. His jewelry, titled “You Clothe Me,” represents the history and legacy of Thai culture. A student majoring in jewelry design at Silpakorn University, he plans to further his studies in fashion design after completing the Graduate Gemologist diploma.

	First place winner Nattawat Srinoon designed “You Clothe Me,” a suite of jewelry pieces inspired by traditional Thai clothing.

	“I believe that jewelry and fashion are inseparable,” he said.

	He said it is rare to find jewelry contests specifically targeted to Thai designers, especially ones supported by leading jewelry companies. “I learned a lot from the intensive gemological workshop, and also gained more experience in manufacturing by working with the jewelry companies.”

	But it wasn’t only the contestants who benefitted from the event.

	“Contestants had the opportunity to have their designs reviewed by industry professionals and design experts and each contestant gained experience to move forward in their gem and jewelry career,” GIA’s Scarratt said. “But the participating jewelry companies also had a great opportunity to work with new talent and be inspired by the creative designs.” @topic:6


Publish Year: - Title: Cindy Yeung Embraces Her Role in Family Jewelry Empire Abstract: Cindy Yeung, chairperson of Emperor Watch and Jewellery, oversees the family business begun by her grandfather. Photos by GIA

                      Cindy Yeung remembers the exact moment she embraced her destiny.

It was a summer day in her father’s shop in Kowloon, China. At 21, she was not paying much attention to the jewelry, even though her father had been encouraging her to take an interest in it since she was a young girl. She just couldn’t relate – until the moment she paused to look back into the shop on her way out and saw a “very bright diamond.”

That sparkling gem grabbed her attention and sparked her passion.

Yeung’s grandfather, Yeung Shing, opened the family’s first watch shop in Kowloon in 1942. Her father, Dr. Albert Yeung, opened his first store in 1964 and, for more than 50 years, grew the business into the one of the world’s most prestigious watch and jewelry retailers: Emperor Watch and Jewellery.

He trained his daughter on the ins-and-outs of running a jewelry store from the time she was 12. "Oh, you'll be the one who will pick up the business later on," he told her. Yeung says it didn’t mean anything to her; she didn’t think it had anything to do with her life.

“At that time, I didn't pay any attention because I was so young,” she said. “I told him ‘Oh, OK,’ but I didn't really pay attention.”

Her father, who owned three or four stores then, persisted and asked her to collect the total sales every day.

	Yeung’s father, Dr. Albert Yeung, left, trained his daughter from a very young age to run the family business.
“I had to remember the telephone number of each shop and remember all the sales of each shop,” she said. “Then I had to present it back to him. So, from that time, he trained me.”

But it wasn’t until that summer day when that diamond caught her eye and made her “feel happy” that she felt the allure of gems and knew she was ready to fully immerse herself in the family business.

She graduated from the University of San Francisco with a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a major in management and an emphasis in international business. She learned about GIA from a friend in the industry and quickly recognized that she needed the education about diamonds and gems offered at GIA’s Santa Monica, California campus.

“I gained both technical expertise and the practical skills to evaluate gemstones,” she said. “GIA gave me the comprehensive knowledge of diamonds and colored stones I need to succeed in the jewelry business. It opened up a world of opportunity for me.”

Yeung wanted to get outside experience, so she joined the sales department of Anju Jewelry Ltd., a U.S. company based in Hong Kong that trades jewelry products, before she joined the family business in 1990.

From the beginning of her career she learned the importance of building trust to establish long-term relationships with her customers. She really cares about helping her customers make the best choices for them and is careful not to present pieces she doesn’t think are suitable for their age, lifestyle or income. She learned to listen to what they were looking for and watch their reactions to pieces as she showed them.

“Maybe with their eyes they tell me they would love to have [a piece that was] a bit more expensive or a little bit less. From their gesture or expression, I can feel them,” she said. “I have a sense of what they like, what they want, and then how much they can afford. I don't want to ask them to come in and show them [pieces] they cannot afford.”

She sees her customers as her friends and often looks forward to sharing her passion for jewelry and showing them something she has found she thinks they will love.

“I love sharing delicate, wonderful things with my customers and friends. I know what they want. I know their style,” she said. “That is the most satisfaction I have, because they will say, ‘Oh, how do you know I like this? How do you know I want this?’ I feel especially contented when my customers are celebrating their special occasions with my jewelry.”

Yeung is also very passionate about jewelry design. She created the group’s design and production team, a milestone for the company. She is inspired by the natural world; leaves, animals, waterfalls and fireworks stimulate her design aesthetic. Yeung attends jewelry and fashion shows, reads the magazines for each industry and shares her insights and perspective with her staff to help the design team stay on top of trends in the market.

She says the most special design she has worked on was the necklace she wore on her wedding day.

“I think pearl is the most suitable for the wedding gown, but I didn't want it to be only pearl. I wanted to have something a bit different, so I put yellow diamonds with a pearl … a very elegant and with a simple sense of the design. I showed it to my husband and he liked it very much, too. So, he presented it to me on the day of the wedding.”

Yeung and the family’s business have grown together. She is chairperson of Emperor Watch and Jewellery, which has 24 shops in Hong Kong, 55 in China, six in Macau and four in Singapore. She has learned that every part of the business is vital for management and works closely with her staff to ensure that the family tradition of quality and service continue to define their luxury brand.

“To run a family business is never an easy task,” she says. “I have to keep an impressive track record of it and in the meantime implement innovative policies. There is a lot of pressure, but I’ve learned how to use it to motivate myself and my staff.”

Yeung has more than realized the importance and allure of gems and jewelry in her life.

	Cindy Yeung Shares Insights to Her Family Business
Want to hear more from Cindy Yeung? In these interview excerpts, this busy, attentive entrepreneur speaks from the heart about her role in the family jewelry empire.

Tell us your favorite part of this business.
I enjoy meeting people and building relationships with them. We get to work in partnership with our customers at some of the biggest moments in their lives. Imagine my excitement when they celebrate their special occasions with my jewelry. It’s immensely rewarding to get to know my customers, and then call them my friends.

How do you build those great customer relationships?
My job is more than management, strategy and a lot of decision-making. I like to visit our shops to ask a lot of questions of my staff and talk to customers directly. You can learn so much from your customers. By carefully listening and observing, you learn about their tastes and preferences, and how to guide them through their jewelry purchases. For example, I always tell my staff not to present the full tray, but to present two or three pieces, maximum. Make sure the design is suitable and let the customer pick up and handle the jewelry. When a customer says, “How did you know I wanted this?” that’s when I am really happy. I know we are building a relationship of trust and making our brand stronger.

What role does gemological knowledge play?
Our customers are sophisticated and they have plenty of questions. We use GIA grading reports to demonstrate the facts about a diamond’s 4Cs, which in turn leads to conversations about quality and value. We make sure new staff is trained about product sense, design, and know how to communicate features and benefits to customers. We also make sure one out of five of our staff is a trained gemologist, and use their technical expertise to evaluate gemstones.

How do you develop your staff?
Experience is very precious. Our qualified gemologists and new staff members do role play exercises and participate in morning briefings. We also bring staff to the Basel Fair and the Hong Kong Fairs to make sure they see the trends at the shows. This is how we encourage our staff to develop a passion for jewelry and become more professional.

What’s the most challenging aspect of your business?
To run a family business is never easy. There’s a lot of pressure on me to continue our amazing track record while constantly implementing innovative practices. I believe that my personal involvement in every part of the business is vital for success, which is why I work so closely with my staff each and every day.

Give us your take on the future of the jewelry business.
It seems the average customer range is expanding, along with their incomes. I think there is now and will continue to be a growing demand in the affordable luxury market. We’re planning to open 20 new shops in China because we see how much potential there is and we’re always working towards growth. Our passion for this business won’t be slowing down anytime soon.

How will changing consumer trends impact your business?
Our customers have certainly become more sophisticated and so have their demands. In their aspirational quest, they seek branded items with genuine value. So along with our new shops, we are optimizing our portfolio of brands, to capture this dynamic market.

Can you let us in on any specific plans for growth?
We'll be launching a series of innovative marketing campaigns and introducing our signature collections, which are designed for a more refined consumer with a focus on quality and craftsmanship.

What new markets are you exploring as you expand the Emperor Jewellery brand?
We believe that Southeast Asia is a growing force in the luxury market, with great potential as a source for revenue. With our goal to further establish ourselves as a global brand, we are always optimistically looking beyond where we currently are. @topic:12


Publish Year: - Title: Books: Untamed Encounters: Contemporary Jewelry from Extraordinary Gemstones Abstract: By Mimi Lipton, 245 pp., hardcover, illus., publ. by Thames & Hudson, New York, 2014. US$95.00.

Untamed Encounters: Contemporary Jewelry from Extraordinary Gemstones is a print gallery of 80 jewels commissioned by collector and author Mimi Lipton, whose interests run not to faceted and finished stones but to unfinished raw materials: mineral crystals, fragments of opal broken from the vein, gems inextricably bound to the matrix in which they have formed, coral worn by the ocean, unusual Baltic amber, and strangely shaped freshwater pearls. In her world travels, Lipton has also discovered carved pieces of amber, bone, ivory, and jade, as well as coral nuggets from old jewelry.

Crystals take millennia to form and rise to the earth’s surface, the accident of their survival a small miracle; corals are burnished by sea and sand into stark, skeletal shapes. Each unique “untamed” piece shows us the beauty and power often inherent in the unfinished and the worn. They are reminiscent of ancient talismanic jewelry in which raw materials of surpassing beauty or strange shape were thought to hold magical powers. Or perhaps they were simply beautiful to look at and to hold.

Suiting the international provenance of these raw materials, Lipton has gathered an international group of seven jewelry artists to create large, bold, unusual works that emphasize the uniqueness of each material. The pieces are often inspired by ethnic jewelry Lipton has encountered in her travels. While most are in 22K gold, some include iron, silver, driftwood, and silk cord. Many of the rough-hewn pieces echo the unfinished quality of the materials set into them. Others contrast the rugged quality of the materials with smoothly finished metal.

Illustrated with 260 large-format color photographs, many of them extreme close-ups, the book allows readers to visually examine these works in detail, from mineral and stone shapes and surfaces to material textures, craftsmanship, and connections. So that nothing interrupts the visual feast, a section at the end provides material and artist information next to thumbnails of each piece. Another section provides biographies of the artists, the photographer, and other contributors.

If anything is missing, it is the stories behind the pieces: where and how Lipton discovered each one, what they mean to her, the story behind each creation—her vision and the artists’ visions and how those met and evolved into finished jewelry. Collaboration is an art in itself, and it would have been enlightening to see how the artists and the collector communicated to create these unique pieces.

Regardless, Untamed Encounters  is certain to be a treat for anyone who appreciates or collects jewelry. It inspires us to take a second look at the world and to question our definitions of beauty and preciousness. @topic:6


Publish Year: 2014 Title: Books: Unique by Design: Contemporary Jewelry in the Donna Schneier Collection Abstract: By Suzanne Ramljak, 136 pp., illus., publ. by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2014, $25.00.

              This book documents the eponymous 2014 exhibition organized by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. As the museum does not provide an exhibit booklet, this is the only available guide to the collection of art and jewelry dealer Donna Schneier. Now retired, Schneier donated her collection of significant studio jewelry pieces to the Met in 2007.

The core of this volume is a chapter titled “Seductive Tactics.” Rather than a systematically documented catalog, this chapter is actually a general essay on contemporary jewelry. Most of the examples and illustrations in the book are pieces from the collection. Maisie Broadhead’s three conceptual pieces, collectively titled “Which Weigh to Go,” are a notable exception. The first of the three pieces is a photo showing a pastiche of a Vermeer painting, depicting a young woman weighing a pearl.  The two other photos are the necklaces in the background of the previous, a gold link chain titled “Big Fake Little Real Chain” and a freshwater pearl necklace named “Big Fake Little Real Pearl.” The “Plates” chapter features more photos that highlight of the collection, such as “Brass Knuckles, a four-finger ring by Myra Mimiltsch-Gray. No explanation is provided as to the motive for this photo selection. The last chapter of the book is a very succinct bibliography on contemporary jewelry.

One strong point is the book’s use of clinically precise color photos, some showing appreciable texture and surface details. The rendering of those photos is uniform throughout the book, which is rare. The use of those pictures is partially illustrative, as this book is more art essay than a catalog. As is usual in this type of book, jewelry measurements and carat weight are not noted, and magnification is not mentioned. To properly catalog the exhibition, the book should have contained a section presenting the 132 displayed pieces, with thumbnail pictures, detailed descriptions, measurements, artist biographies, and details on how the pieces were acquired. The book gives very little insight on the collection itself and does not answer one legitimate question: If the collection was donated in 2007, why show it now?

Overall, Unique By Design reads like a general introductory art essay to studio jewelry rather than a guide to a specific exhibition. Therefore, it is more suited to jewelry students and art collectors with an interest in studio jewelry. @topic:6


Publish Year: - Title: Books: Unique by Design: Contemporary Jewelry in the Donna Schneier Collection Abstract: By Suzanne Ramljak, 136 pp., illus., publ. by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2014, $25.00.

                      This book documents the eponymous 2014 exhibition organized by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. As the museum does not provide an exhibit booklet, this is the only available guide to the collection of art and jewelry dealer Donna Schneier. Now retired, Schneier donated her collection of significant studio jewelry pieces to the Met in 2007.

The core of this volume is a chapter titled “Seductive Tactics.” Rather than a systematically documented catalog, this chapter is actually a general essay on contemporary jewelry. Most of the examples and illustrations in the book are pieces from the collection. Maisie Broadhead’s three conceptual pieces, collectively titled “Which Weigh to Go,” are a notable exception. The first of the three pieces is a photo showing a pastiche of a Vermeer painting, depicting a young woman weighing a pearl.  The two other photos are the necklaces in the background of the previous, a gold link chain titled “Big Fake Little Real Chain” and a freshwater pearl necklace named “Big Fake Little Real Pearl.” The “Plates” chapter features more photos that highlight of the collection, such as “Brass Knuckles, a four-finger ring by Myra Mimiltsch-Gray. No explanation is provided as to the motive for this photo selection. The last chapter of the book is a very succinct bibliography on contemporary jewelry.

One strong point is the book’s use of clinically precise color photos, some showing appreciable texture and surface details. The rendering of those photos is uniform throughout the book, which is rare. The use of those pictures is partially illustrative, as this book is more art essay than a catalog. As is usual in this type of book, jewelry measurements and carat weight are not noted, and magnification is not mentioned. To properly catalog the exhibition, the book should have contained a section presenting the 132 displayed pieces, with thumbnail pictures, detailed descriptions, measurements, artist biographies, and details on how the pieces were acquired. The book gives very little insight on the collection itself and does not answer one legitimate question: If the collection was donated in 2007, why show it now?

Overall, Unique By Design reads like a general introductory art essay to studio jewelry rather than a guide to a specific exhibition. Therefore, it is more suited to jewelry students and art collectors with an interest in studio jewelry. @topic:6


Publish Year: 1992 Title: Methods for Determining Gold Content of Jewelry Metals Abstract: Verifying the gold content of karat-gold jewelry is a problem for the entire industry. This study compares four widely available testing methods: density (measured by hydrostatic weighing), chemical reactivity (touchstone testing), capacitive decay (Tri-Electronics G-XL-18 Gold Tester), and X-ray fluorescence (Seiko Instruments SEA 2001 Jewelry Assay System). The latter three methods all proved useful within certain limitations; hydrostatic weighing was least suitable. None of these methods reliably determined gold content within the 3-ppt tolerance allowed by U.S. plumb laws. @topic:8


Publish Year: - Title: Books: In Praise of Hands: The Art of Fine Jewelry at Van Cleef & Arpels Abstract: By Franco Cologni, 199 pp., hardcover, illus., publ. by Marsilio Editori, S.p.a. Venice, 2012, $90.00.

                      Van Cleef & Arpels, born from the matrimonial alliance of two prominent Dutch jewelers’ families in 1895, opened their boutique in Paris’s Place Vendôme in 1906 and quickly gained international acclaim. Over the years, the maison created iconic jewelry pieces, such as invisibly set floral brooches, fashionable minaudières and cigarette cases, Ludo Hexagone bracelets, and zipper necklaces. One of the forces behind the firm’s meteoric rise was its excellence in design and craftsmanship. As part of its public relations and branding strategy, Van Cleef & Arpels emphasizes quality craftsmanship and respect for traditional techniques. In Praise of Hands embodies this branding effort. This luxurious book, titled in honor of art historian Henri Focillon’s 1943 philosophical essay on how hands shape art, celebrates Van Cleef & Arpels’s Mains d’Or, or most skilled craftspeople.

The book’s first eleven chapters correspond to various specialized crafts: “The Designer,” “The Mock-Up Maker,” “The Jeweler,” “The Setter,” “Mystery Setting,” “The Stone-Cutter,” “The Diamond-Cutter,” “The Polisher,” “The Smelter,” “The Sculptor-Engraver,” and “The Boîtier.” Each explains, in great detail, a given stage of the design and manufacturing process. Some chapters are of particular interest for jewelers, such as “The Designer,” “The Smelter” and “The Polisher.” These craftsmen are instrumental in creating and giving shape to all jewelry pieces, so it is important to have them featured. For gemologists, “The Stone-Cutter” and “The Sculptor-Engraver” are extremely informative, providing great detail on both processes. The most stimulating and revealing chapters to jewelry enthusiasts are “The Mock-Up Maker,” “Mystery Setting,” and “The Boîtier.” These allow the reader to uncover some of Van Cleef & Arpels’ manufacturing secrets and better fathom its high level of craftsmanship. For instance, the systematic use of mock-ups, made of alloy and rhinestones, demonstrates the utmost attention to detail and practicality. This rendering technique is poles apart from today’s abstract 3D CAD/CAM projections. It allows design and production teams to spot potential technical problems and even provides for price estimates of jewelry pieces at an early stage.

One of the book’s strong points is its display of artful color jewelry renderings. Given the Place Vendôme’s world of secrecy, it is worth noting that some of the sketches feature serial numbers, names of patrons, and details on gemstone costs and corresponding vendors. This type of information is useful to anyone involved in jewelry pricing.

The book is selectively illustrated with three categories of photos. The first type consists of original color sketches with corresponding magnified shots of antique pieces, many of them from the jewelry house’s archival collection. The second type consists of black-and-white photos, using the chiaroscuro technique, of the Mains d’Or craftspeople at work. The third type, appearing at the end of each chapter, features a general shot of a recent piece alongside a detailed photo (showing individual gemstones in some cases). The opening and ending chapter photos are well suited to the chapters’ topics, proving that the craftsmanship inherent in past masterpieces is still alive.

On the down side, there is a relative disconnect between the photos of artisans’ hands and the contemporary jewelry pieces shown at the ends of sections. There would have been greater impact if the book had shown the same piece twice, once between the hands of a jeweler during its making and once completed. The photos of jewelers’ hands, though certainly a strong homage to their skills and dedication, are a superficial representation. At best, these pictures convey the contrast between rugged hands and delicate jewelry components in various stage of completion, as well as the artisans’; strength and dexterity. Yet focusing on their hands is too restrictive, and does not convey the physicality involved in jewelry making. The process is not limited to the hands; rather, it is a constant connection between hands, eyes, and brain, which is difficult to capture in photos. The concluding chapter, “The Crafts,” presents photos of all the craftsmen’s hands. This allows the reader to envision the actual handling of a piece through the different steps.

The text is extremely informative and detailed on all the phases of jewelry manufacturing. It does not shy away from technical descriptions—including an impressive list of tool names—while remaining inviting and accessible. It gives way, however, to the repetition of clichés, such as the poetic vision of the maison’s single-minded pursuit of perfection, beauty, and total control over its whole manufacturing process.

Despite these few shortcomings, the book is a must-have for jewelry students, bench jewelers, and gem experts who wish to become more familiar with this exclusive brand. Cologni describes a level of craftsmanship and organization that is almost extinct in the industry today. Van Cleef & Arpels’s variety of inspirations, design creativity, and manufacturing quality are among the very highest, and this opus is a beautiful tribute. @topic:6


Publish Year: - Title: A Perfect Combination of Craftsmanship and Design: An Interview with Leading Chinese Jewelry Designer Shirley Zhang Abstract: Shirley Zhang is a well-known Chinese jewelry designer. Her designs combine western craftsmanship and oriental aesthetic standards. – Photo courtesy Shenzhen Meiher Jewelry Ltd.

                      Shirley Zhang had never planned to be a jewelry designer when she took her first job as an accounting officer in the subsidiary jewelry company of People’s Bank of China. Due to her dedication and passion, she quickly became involved in that company’s management. Influenced by the business she dealt with every day, Shirley fell in love with the colorful world of gemstones and jewelry.

After receiving her FGA gemology degree in the early 1990s, Shirley stepped into the jewelry industry. Since then, she has steadily grown her own career as a jewelry designer. She is now one of the leading jewelry designers in China—one who is also recognized by professionals of the western world.

Shirley has created her special “z” style jewelry concept, which places emphasis on a combination of western craftsmanship and oriental aesthetic standards, and encompasses use of multiple materials and haute couture services. This concept has brought Shirley’s designs industry recognition as being representative of modern, elegant Chinese jewelry.

	From retailer to designer
Between 1978 and 1990, the jewelry trade slowly grew out of the ruins left by China’s Cultural Revolution.  The industry’s revival began after China re-opened the country to trade in 1978. Most merchandise on the market consisted of fine gold products, including some jewelry styles made with very simple craftsmanship. Consumer choices were very limited and they generally lacked knowledge about gemstones or jewelry.

The next five years (about 1989 to 1995) witnessed a huge expansion of the industry. Many local jewelers opened businesses with big investments. Several Hong Kong and Taiwan jewelry companies sensed the potential of the mainland China market and started acting on that awareness. Consumers started paying more attention to jewelry styles and fashion trends, but their tastes were usually influenced by big promotional campaigns like those run by De Beers and others.

At that time, very few Chinese businesses understood the important role that branding played in merchandise promotion. Shirley opened a chain of retail jewelry stores in 1994. In 1996, she wrote her English name, “Shirley,” by hand, and used it as her brand. Within a short period of time, she had opened branded retail stores in 14 different cities in mainland China. Their success brought her more opportunities and access to the western world.

After 1995, the market became more regulated and consumers more mature. Shirley had started her retail stores right at the beginning of this period. Although business was good and profit was guaranteed, her merchandise had nothing—no “stories” of its own—to distinguish it from other brands.

Around 1999, Shirley was, for the first time, shocked by the big gap in jewelry design between the western world and the newly expanding Chinese market. During her first trip to Italy, she visited many jewelry stores and came to the realization that something was missing from her own brand in China. Instead of keeping the stores running, she made the very brave decision to shut them down.

She became a full-time buyer for Chinese jewelry import companies. This turned out to be a smart move and a turning point in her career. As a buyer, she had the opportunity to travel the world and meet experienced jewelry professionals. Her most important goal was to learn from their experiences and use that knowledge for her own career development.

Some of Shirley’s clients in Europe consider her jewelry taste to be very unique. Unlike many of her Chinese peers, she tended to purchase higher-quality goods that were also highly fashionable. This left very positive and pleasant impressions in her clients’ minds. Along with her unique tastes, Shirley is also a fast learner, pays a lot of attention to detail, and grasps every opportunity to learn from others.

Shirley’s design career really began with an education in craftsmanship. In Europe, she purchased jewelry pieces with elegant or complicated craftsmanship. Instead of wearing them, she took them apart and re-assembled them to analyze the manufacturing techniques used to make them. She also attended workshops and learned from master goldsmiths.
The experience Shirley gained from participating in the European market also triggered her consciousness of the oriental aesthetic. At the same time, the design concept of oriental artistic jewelry started to form and grow in her mind.

Taking the advice of an Italian friend, after seven years as a buyer she opened her own studio in 2004 and started to manufacture jewelry for some of her European clients. Although she designed some pieces here and there, most of the designs were still provided by her western colleagues. Gradually, her role started to shift. Eventually, she became both designer and manufacturer. Now she focuses solely on designing jewelry and developing new manufacturing techniques. She leaves most of the actual manufacturing work to the employees in her studio.

	In the molding department of her jewelry manufacturing studio in Shenzhen, Shirley displays a silver mold of one of her designs. – Photo by Eric Welch, © GIA

	Shirley now spends more time on high-end jewelry design and leaves most of the manufacturing work to her employees. – Photo by Eric Welch, © GIA

	A perfect combination of western craftsmanship and oriental aesthetic standards
Shirley’s design inspirations come mostly from her daily life. For example, her love of birds and flowers inspired her to design the series called “The Spirit of Peacock” and “The Love of Flowers.” In her work, she pays special attention to color and the arrangement of various objects in a design.

As a newly assigned board member of the ICA (International Colored Gemstone Association), Shirley made a presentation about color’s influence on her jewelry designs at the 2013 ICA Congress in Changsha, China.

Color played a very important role in the development of China’s jewelry design industry. From the all-the-same green and gray uniforms people wore during the Cultural Revolution to the pale red and blue sapphire rings people preferred in the 1980s and 1990s, Chinese consumers have made a lot of progress, gradually adjusting to the fast-developing economy and changes in lifestyle. Life in this new century has been colorful to a level unprecedented in China’s history.

Sensing this change, Shirley uses colors boldly in her designs. In some designs, she emphasizes the fine colors of the gemstones themselves. In other pieces, she tries to demonstrate harmony by combining different colors. She also likes to match colors with different shapes or cultural themes. She loves to use colors but is not limited by them.

Besides color awareness, Shirley also has the unique ability to combine different materials. She often lays out a lot of different materials in her studio and tries different combinations of a variety of materials and jewelry parts and varied types of craftsmanship. For example, she tries to combine faceted stones and cabochons, metal and wood, china and crystal gems, enamel and gems, and more. Her creative combinations awaken the spirits of all these varied materials.

	Shirley has designed many jewelry pieces with animal themes. She used a very unique inlay method to show the peacock’s colors in this jewelry set, which is called “The Spirit of Peacock.” – Photo courtesy Shenzhen Meiher Jewelry Ltd.

	Shirley created this design to demonstrate harmony among different colors and shapes. She used carved jadeite to symbolize Chinese culture. – Photo courtesy Shenzhen Meiher Jewelry Ltd.
Unlike many other designers, Shirley was not an art major. She started her design career by learning craftsmanship from experts in the field. Aside from design concepts and ideas, whether or not a design can be turned into an actual jewelry piece is another serious consideration. Besides designing jewelry, Shirley has spent a huge amount of time researching and developing new craft skills and techniques. The combination of traditional lost-wax casting and die-striking in the creation of a single jewelry piece is one of her famed inventions.

Over the past 10 years, she and her colleagues have gained numerous patents for jewelry manufacturing and stone-cutting techniques. Her research and exploration distinguished her from her competitors and gave her a leading position in China’s jewelry design industry. Shirley is very familiar with jewelry manufacturing techniques and the market’s current fashion trends. When faced with the question of how to make her “Shirley” brand stand out, she chose to combine western and oriental cultural elements in her own unique way.

	This is a see-through enamel finished product. Shirley Zhang’s factory is the only manufacturer of see-through enamel in China. – Photo courtesy Shenzhen Meiher Jewelry Ltd.
Consumers’ needs inspire and guide Shirley’s designs. She states that before she sketches a design for a consumer, she needs to have knowledge of new fashion trends as well as of the consumer’s personality and color preferences. If she is designing for a brand, she must know what the brand strategy is. She needs answers to all these questions before she starts working. In her eyes, whether a design is pretty or not is not as important as whether or not it matches the customer’s style. She wants her design to best represent the heart and inner being of her client.

	Artistic jewelry: new ideas for the rapidly developing Chinese jewelry market
Shirley’s more than 20 years’ experience as a jewelry professional parallel the biggest changes in the history of the Chinese jewelry industry. Shirley and her business experienced a lot of those changes along with the industry.

Market changes are usually directly influenced by consumers. Twenty years ago, because Chinese consumers focused only on the material the jewelry was made of, most jewelry stores carried only fine gold jewelry. Besides the rich history of gold jewelry in China, value retention was the main reason for consumers to buy. Later, people slowly gained knowledge about gemstones like diamond, ruby, and sapphire. The promotions done by some international brands influenced Chinese consumers to start accepting jewelry pieces set with gems, even while they remained focused mainly on the value of the precious metal and stones.

At the time, all stone-set jewelry had a similar look, so the emphasis was on specific jewelry features. For example, a buyer looking for a piece of jewelry would insist that it be set with a 10-point diamond with a clarity grade of VVS or above and color grade of G or better.

About five years ago, Shirley noticed some sharp shifts in the market. Before that, her clients had been mostly from overseas. Today, she serves mainly domestic clients, both individuals and known brands. Her customers fall into four main categories: investors, collectors, accessory-driven clients, and those who value China’s cultural inheritance. Consumers no longer focus only on materials. Today, they pay more attention to jewelry designs. She admits that there are still big differences among various demographic groups. Older consumers still want better-quality materials that keep their value, while young people prefer fashionable and unique designs without much regard for the stones used.

	This is an example of the designs Shirley creates for her high-end customers. It’s a great combination of manufacturing skills, color, and shape. – Photo courtesy Shenzhen Meiher Jewelry Ltd.
Shirley shares the same views as other designers in terms of jewelry buyers’ motivations. She sees no big difference between international and domestic consumers. She does see that more and more young Chinese office workers are buying jewelry for themselves as rewards or gifts. This is similar to what happened in the US, when more women became independent and went off to work.

To satisfy the mature western jewelry market as well as the newly developed Chinese market, Shirley and her team have designed many jewelry series that have been well accepted and appreciated by consumers. Some examples are “The Love of Flowers,” “Birds Chirping,” “Spirit of Jadeite,” and “Dancing on the Flowers” as well as some new-technique enamels. These products all provide a combination of western craftsmanship and oriental aesthetic standards that have become consumer favorites.

Shirley and her colleagues are very optimistic about the future of the Chinese jewelry market. Chinese consumers are fast learners as well as great inheritors of their ancestral culture. They are quickly educating themselves and becoming some of the most powerful buyers in the world. Shirley says that all designers should realize this and be ready to supply this market without being left behind.

	Skilled craftsmanship and western and oriental aesthetic standards combined with haute couture services
Successful jewelry designers usually have their own art studios. Shirley’s business model is quite different from most of the others. Its uniqueness is apparent in the company name: Meiher Jewelry Styling Research Center.

The GIA team visited Shirley’s company in June of 2013. The visit began with a factory tour. It was not a big factory. Shirley repeatedly emphasized that she tries to include every step, from design to finished product, in this small factory. She maintains full contact with all these steps so she can research and develop new techniques. The factory serves as both a production line and a lab.

She proudly informed us that Meiher is the only jewelry company in China that can make transparent enamel. Enamel is usually painted on some sort of base material. This new technique eliminates the base and lets the enamel stand alone, allowing people to see through it. Several technicians are working hard to develop this technique and they already have created some finished product.

	In Shirley’s factory, you can observe every jewelry-making step. The facility includes a die-striking department. – Photo by Eric Welch, © GIA
For the past ten years, Shirley has designed for many famous jewelry brands in China—both commercial quality and high-end. Today, she focuses mainly on the haute couture market. Her design studio in Beijing serves only celebrities and other high-end customers.

	This exhibition, held for high-end clients, displays customized jewelry designs by Shirley Zhang. – Photo courtesy Shenzhen Meiher Jewelry Ltd.

	A milestone in Shirley’s design career
When many people think about Shirley, the first design that comes to mind is her award-winning piece, “Dancing on the Flowers.” Inspired by the way bees interact and work together diligently, Shirley brought her passion for gemstones and manufacturing skills into designing this jewelry suite. The suite was given a special award as the gift for the “20 years’ accomplishments of the Chinese jewelry industry” at the 2012 NGTC (National Gems & Jewelry Technology Administrative Center) jewelry design and manufacturing skills competition.

	This is Shirley’s award-winning jewelry suite called “Dancing on the Flowers.” The suite was designed and manufactured by Shirley Zhang. – Photo courtesy Shenzhen Meiher Jewelry Ltd.
To emphasize the “accomplishments” aspect, along with the theme of the jewelry design competition, which was “impression,” Shirley chose to use different gemstone varieties and apply different mounting and cutting styles. The suite includes a cape, a cuff bracelet, and a pair of earrings. Colorful bees are busily working on the flowers and bringing honey back to their beehives, which consist of numerous cells. The design symbolizes the people in China’s jewelry industry who, like the bees, diligently contribute to the industry’s accomplishments and growth over the past 20 years.

Of the three items, the cape is the most breathtaking. It is more than 1 meter (3 feet) long, and made by applying traditional lost-wax casting and die-striking. It features newly developed “dumbbell” buckle links and a patented “honeycomb” setting. The “dumbbell” buckle link effectively connects all the beehive cells and allows them to move freely together as well as individually. When it is worn, it drapes on the wearer’s shoulder and conforms to the body. The wearer feels the fabric-like softness created by the special link system.

Another advantage of this link system is that it is easily assembled or taken apart, which gives its wearer maximum wearing flexibility. The owner of this cape can actually create other jewelry pieces by disassembling it or assembling it in a different way.

Close attention to the flowers on the cape and the cuff bracelet reveals the special mounting, called a “honeycomb” setting. By applying this technique, both sides look the same because light is able to travel through the gemstones. Previously, it was difficult to mount stones in a floral design because larger stones don’t easily fit in and the backs of the flowers have a very unpleasant look because the light is blocked. The earrings are also delicate in their design. The honeycomb pattern allows people a 360-degree view of the earring. The inner and outer spheres can move individually.

This jewelry suite is set with 1,002 colored stones and 4,986 diamonds. It contains both extremely expensive, high-quality jadeite cabochons and very affordable chalcedony cabochons. Shirley also tried to use gemstones of different cuts and sizes. Shirley has many famous designs, but she says this is definitely her favorite, since it is a perfect combination of her design and delicate craftsmanship techniques.

Through the years, Shirley has devoted herself to the study of different gem materials and jewelry manufacturing techniques. She created and patented new jewelry-making methods and revived old ones. Her designs express her love of nature. Shirley and her colleagues have kept bringing surprises to the industry.

	Suggestions and expectations for future designers
Before our formal interview, Shirley talked about her experience as a mentor and advisor of young jewelry designers and jewelry design students. As a NGTC professional instructor, she travels to different cities to give lectures on jewelry design and manufacturing. At the same time, she gets invitations from universities with jewelry design programs to lecture the students. Shirley came to notice that when she looked at the designs the students presented to her, she realized that many of them couldn’t be manufactured.

The students were good at presenting innovative ideas, but did not know much about the craftsmanship side of the business. Many of their educational programs only teach the students how to design a piece of jewelry instead of how to design and then make it. Based on her personal experience, Shirley believes that it makes more sense to learn craftsmanship before design concepts.

In this information era, young people are surrounded and sometimes overwhelmed by all the information they can easily access. Shirley hopes that students can “stay down to earth.” She says that young designers can’t be successful without being good at both craftsmanship and design ideas. @topic:12


Publish Year: - Title: Let Jewelry Tell the Story: An Interview with Chinese-Style Designer Yue-Yo Wang Abstract: Jewelry designer Yue-Yo Wang, from Taiwan, is the founder of Wang Yue-Yo Creative Jewelry Design. Photo courtesy of Wang Yue-Yo Creative Jewelry Design.

                      China has a long history of jewelry design. For thousands of years, the Chinese people have used jewelry for self-adornment. Today, more and more western designers are implementing oriental elements into their jewelry.

Yue-Yo Wang, a jewelry designer from Taiwan, has devoted herself to traditional Chinese jewelry design. She has combined the Chinese knotting art with modern jewelry design and manufacturing techniques to create her own pieces. Every finished piece has its own story.

	Yue-Yo’s designs feature large, high-quality materials, applied in the “Chinese Style.”
	Photo courtesy of Wang Yue-Yo Creative Jewelry Design.

	Chinese Knotting Art
In China, knotting art can be traced back to around 1600 BC. Before that time, knotting had a more practical purpose, which was to record important events or numbers on a daily basis. After that, with the development of written record-keeping, knotting gradually lost its practical purpose and became more decorative.

Chinese knotting art experienced a peak from around 600 AD until the early 1900s. Along with most of the other arts, its development paused during a 100-year span of social upheaval in China. Currently, knotting is being picked up once more by younger generations, who have developed a high appreciation for this ancient art. Knotting threads are made of a variety of materials. Knotting art can be used for room decorations or jewelry pieces. China has even established qualifying exams at different levels for experienced knot makers.

At one time, Yue-Yo enjoyed a very relaxed and easy life as a housewife and collector of Chinese artistic teapots. When an unforeseen event affected her husband’s business, her easy life ended and she had to start making an income. She began a small business to sell her teapot collection along with some of her knotted teapot covers.

She gradually fell in love with knotting and decided that she could use it to add to her profits. She spent time developing her knotting skills and, after a short period of time, became a well-known knot maker. People advised her to establish a knotting art education program and many students came to learn from her, some of them from overseas.

Although knotting products and classes increased her profits, they still required a lot of labor and sold for relatively low prices. She often had to work extra hours or overnight to complete orders. This situation inspired her to look for a more efficient way to add value to her products. She tried using knotting techniques on clothes, decorations, and other articles. Then she came up with the great idea of combining knotting art with modern jewelry manufacturing methods.

She was not yet a jewelry designer, so she passed most of the knotting work to her students and set out to learn jewelry design. Accomplishing this turned out to be a great advantage for her jewelry company, which was very successful even when the global economy was suffering.

	Knotted thread was used to create the wrapping band on this jewelry piece.  Photo
	courtesy of Wang Yue-Yo Creative Jewelry Design

	The headquarters of Wang Yue-Yo Creative Jewelry Design in Taipei. Photo courtesy of Wang Yue-Yo Creative Jewelry Design.

	Personal and Company Growth
Yue-Yo has been part of the jewelry design industry for about 20 years. In that time, her company has experienced several important development stages.

From 1993 to 1999, Yue-Yo Wang Creative Jewelry Design concentrated on promoting the design concept of “Chinese style” jewelry. They participated in many large international jewelry shows to attract international consumers and build the company image. From 2000-2005, Yue-Yo and her colleagues increased their participation in a variety of social works while further developing their jewelry design and manufacturing techniques.

Around 2005, she sensed the rapid development and huge potential of the mainland China jewelry market. She and her team headed west to explore this major market. So far, since then they have opened more than 10 stores all over mainland China, including their guild store, which opened in 2007 in Beijing. In 2008, Yue-Yo was asked by Beijing Shanyuan Jewelry Company to jointly design the Beijing Olympics souvenir crystal dragon stamp. This event gave her and her designs more public exposure and also made her more confident about the future of “Chinese style” jewelry.

In 2012, Yue-Yo turned another dream into reality by forming the Taiwan Creative Jewelry Design Association. She hopes that this organization will attract more jewelry designers who focus on artistic jewelry design and would like to spread the Chinese culture to the rest of the world.

	Yue-Yo designs not only jewelry, but also “Chinese style” clothing. Her jewelry and clothes go perfectly together.  Photo courtesy of Wang Yue-Yo Creative Jewelry Design.

	This is the exterior of the company’s guild store in Beijing. Photo courtesy of Wang Yue-Yo Creative Jewelry Design.

View Gallery

	This slideshow exhibits representative Chinese style jewelries as designed by Yue-Yo Wang.

	Jewelry Design Concepts and Inspirations
A careful look at Yue-Yo’s design always reveals some traditional Chinese symbols and some elements from Chinese knotting art, like long tassels and thread patterns The main focus of her designs is to combine different symbols to create a scene or a story.

	Birds, flowers, tassels, and Chinese character patterns are common elements in
	Yue-Yo’s designs. Photo courtesy of Wang Yue-Yo Creative Jewelry Design.
Yue-Yo’s designs are usually inspired by the stones in her hands. She believes that every gem has its own spirit, and she is inspired to find it and express it to people. Since her main business is now high-end customized design for consumers, she pays a lot of attention to the quality of the gem materials and the manufacturing details of her jewelry. She employs her own jewelers, so it is very easy for her to work with them and pass along her ideas to them. Some of her jewelers have more than 30 years of experience in the industry.

Materials that she uses most commonly in her designs include opal, coral, jadeite, tourmaline, and chalcedony. She likes coral the most, because coral is one of the three symbolic gems of Taiwan. Before, rough coral was often exported to Japan and other countries to be carved, so she felt that the Taiwanese did not take full advantage of their own gems.

She began to use coral in her knotting projects, attracting respect and appreciation from coral dealers. Then she found that the real high-quality corals are not fit for knotting because holes usually needed to be made. She now uses other high-quality material in her high-end design products.

	High-quality coral from Taiwan is Yue-Yo’s favorite gem material to use in her haute couture products. Photo courtesy of Wang Yue-Yo Creative Jewelry Design.

	Passing Skills to the Next Generation
Yue-Yo Wang is not just a designer; she is also a great instructor. She enjoys talking to young people. At every jewelry show she participates in, she likes to talk to young students who want to be jewelry designers.

She still teaches knotting and jewelry design to young people (Fig.9). Many of her students started good careers after being trained and helped by her. In the future, she plans to work more on jewelry design education and the spread of Chinese culture, working through her own company and the organization she formed.

	Yue-Yo teaches jewelry design students in order to pass her design skills to the next generation. Photo courtesy of Wang Yue-Yo Creative Jewelry Design. @topic:12


Publish Year: - Title: Summer Fashion Ideas: Colorful, Playful Jewelry Abstract: As summer heats up, stylish women will keep their cool with sophisticated, playful jewelry with an accent on color.

There is an emphasis on delicate pastels in summer jewelry – the kind you would find on a baby’s blanket: powder blue, soft turquoise, blush pink, mint green, and pale yellow. Translated into gemstones by gem and design experts at GIA, this means aquamarine, blue topaz, blue and pink sapphire, pink and green tourmaline, peridot, citrine, yellow sapphire and chalcedony – and don’t forget about the classic pearl. For the ultimate in flattery to all complexion types, look for soft, luminescent gems in misty colors such as pearl, moonstone, chalcedony, rose and smoky quartz.

With all casual, warm-weather fashions, the must-have jewelry items are playful and full of movement. Consider a sun, moon, or star pendant in silver, gold, or dotted with gemstones, worn swinging from a long rope or leather cord. The season’s dangling earrings can reach nearly to the shoulders, and are often capped off with sparkling beads or briolettes (teardrop-shaped gems that are faceted or smooth).

The shapes of the jewelry, like the cut of the clothes, are classic yet modern for the summer. Favored motifs include hearts, circles and ovals, and necklaces feature repeating patterns of geometric links. In pendants and earrings, look for designs within designs, such as a series of concentric circles or hearts within hearts. Rings have soft shapes too, with smooth, domed cabochons in oval and round shapes.

Another strong theme for summer relies on color to make its point. This look, more sophisticated than the baby pastels, is exotic, with Indian/African/Asian themes alive with vibrant patterns and colors. Necklaces and pendants are worn in multiples; earrings are bold and oversized; and a single cuff or multiple bangles cover the arms.

Animal patterns, such as leopard, tiger, and zebra motifs, remain strong in clothing and accessories. Decorative designs such as paisleys, calligraphy, petals, and leaves add punctuation to summer dressing. Choose a large floral pin to wear in your hair or on a shoulder by day; switch to drop earrings dotted with sparkling gemstones by night.

Whether your summer jewelry selections include sparkling diamonds, alluring colored stones, or lustrous pearls, always deal with a reputable jeweler, like a GIA Graduate Gemologist, Graduate Jeweler or Accredited Jewelry Professional. Their training is backed by the world’s foremost authority in gemology – GIA. A GIA Diamond Grading Report should accompany any significant diamond purchase. @topic:6


Publish Year: 2001 Title: Winter 2001 G&G Book Reviews Abstract: “Gemstones: Symbols of Beauty and Power”
By Edward Gübelin and Franz-Xaver Erni, with photographic contributions by Erica and Harold Van Pelt, 240 pp., illus., publ. by Geoscience Press, Tucson, AZ, 2000. US$49.95

“The Jeweled Menagerie: The World of Animals in Gems”
By Suzanne Tennenbaum and Janet Zapata, 216 pp., illus., publ. by Thames & Hudson, New York, 2001. US $45.00

“Diamond: A Journey to the Heart of an Obsession”
By Matthew Hart, 276 pp., illus., publ. by Walker & Co., New York, 2001. US$26.00

“Barren Lands: An Epic Search for Diamonds in the North American Arctic.”
By Kevin Krajick, 442 pp., illus., publ. by Times Books (Henry Holt and Co.), New York, 2001. US$26.00

“Pearls: A Natural History”
By Neil H. Landman, Paula M. Mikkelsen, Rudiger Bieler, and Bennet Bronson, 232 pp., illus., publ. by Harry N. Abrams, New York, in association with The American Museum of Natural History and The Field Museum, 2001. US$49.50

“Diamonds: Famous & Fatal”
By Leo P. Kendall, 236 pp., illus., publ. by Barricade Books, Fort Lee, NJ, 2001. US$30.00

“Proceedings of the International Workshop on Material Characterization by Solid State Spectroscopy: Gems and Minerals of Vietnam”
Edited by Wolfgang Hofmeister, Nguyen Quy Dao, and Vu Xuan Quang, 334 pp., illus., publ. by Vien Khoa hoc Vat lieu, Hanoi, US$20.00 [e-mail: quangvx@hn.vnn.vn]

“Shinju no Kagaku [Science of the Pearl]”
By Koji Wada, 339 pp., illus., publ. by Shinju Shinbunsaya (Pearl News Press), Tokyo, 1999 [in Japanese], ¥8,500

“Minding the Store”
By Stanley Marcus, 383 pp., illus., publ. by University of North Texas Press, Denton, TX, paperback edition 2001, US$19.95

To view the full section, download the PDF above. @topic:8


Publish Year: - Title: Diamond Lattice Defects: GIA Researchers Explore Internal Tagging and Gray-Blue-Violet Diamond Color Abstract: GIA researchers Troy Ardon, left and Chloe Peaker, presented their diamond quantum findings at the recent Princeton-GIA Symposium. Ardon focused on an internal diamond tagging application and Peaker looked at why some diamonds have gray-to-blue-violet color.

GIA scientists presented their latest research on diamond tagging and the cause of gray-blue-violet color in diamonds at the Princeton-GIA Diamond Symposium, sponsored by GIA, on Jan. 24 at Princeton University.
The annual symposium is held to foster collaboration among quantum experimentalists, material scientists and industrial partners. Participants included quantum and materials research groups from the Argonne National Laboratory, Institut Néel Grenoble, City College of New York, Cornell University, CUNY College of Staten Island, IBM Quantum, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.
“This symposium is a wonderful way to bring together academic and industry scientists in the area that they are working on in a number of topics related to diamond, materials, spectroscopy and quantum technologies,” said Nathalie de Leon, associate professor of electrical engineering at Princeton and the organizer of the conference. “The discussions and the collaborations that resulted are incredibly valuable, and my students and I have really enjoyed the breadth of topics.”
Internal Diamond Tagging
Troy Ardon, who has a master’s in diamond science and technology from the University of Warwick in the UK and is a research associate at GIA in Carlsbad, presented "Laser Writing the H3 Defect into Natural Ia Diamond," which involves researching how to use laser writing to create an internal tagging system for diamonds.
In order to understand the possibilities, according to Ardon, you need to understand the structure of a diamond. A diamond is made up of carbon bonded together in a repeating structure known as a lattice. Pure diamond is pure carbon, nothing else, he said. It is very common, however, for non-carbon atoms (the most common is nitrogen) to be “substituted” into the diamond lattice. When a single nitrogen atom takes the place of a carbon atom, it is called substitutional nitrogen. A vacancy is just a missing carbon atom - an empty space in the lattice.

These lattice models show the differences between pure diamond, left, and diamonds with defects, center and right. Illustration by Troy Ardon/GIA
“You can combine these defects in a number of different ways, such as the H3 defect – a nitrogen-vacancy-nitrogen structure in the lattice,” Ardon said. “We used high powered focused laser pulses to knock carbon atoms out of the lattice, creating vacancies. The nitrogen was present in the form of A centers. We then annealed (slowly heated) the diamonds to ‘migrate’ the vacancies into the A-center to create the H3. We wanted to see if we could create H3 defects that can be measured above the background – one that ‘stands above the crowd’ so to speak.”
The results?
“We successfully wrote the H3 defect in a natural diamond with a low H3 background without producing visible damage,” he said. “We were not successful in writing a measurable H3 in a diamond with a high background, even with high energy pulses, which means we will have to expand our search for other writeable defects.”
Ardon said this kind of fundamental research from diamond quantum photonics ‒ a catch-all term for diamond optics and the usage of diamond defects as photon sources ‒ can be turned into a potential application for the gem industry: the creation of a robust internal tagging system. The goal is to create a unique serialized mark (similar to a QR code) to help prevent fraud and improve traceability.
“I greatly enjoy using new and fundamental research and applying it to an industry with which most people are familiar,” he said. “It almost provides a conduit to get information about high level research to a wide audience. It’s fun to connect new scientific ideas/methods with real world applications that anyone can understand.”
How do gray-to-blue-to violet diamonds get their color?
Chloe Peaker, Ph.D. and a postdoctoral research associate at GIA in New York, presented "Transition Metal Centers: A Potential Cause of Color in Gray-to-Blue-to-Violet Hydrogen-rich Diamonds," a snapshot of a theoretical and experimental study investigating what defect causes the color of rare gray-blue-violet diamonds.
“The cause of this diamond color has eluded the community thus far,” Peaker said. “The diamonds are rare and very valuable because the color is unique to naturals and has not been seen in laboratory- grown or treated stones.”
The color of the stone can be investigated by looking at the UV-visible absorption spectrum, she said, but from a theoretical perspective, identifying peaks and the responsible defect is inherently difficult.
Peaker said the study initially focused on the identification of the defect that causes the 3236 cm-1 absorption, a well-defined peak seen in Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), an absorption spectroscopy technique that looks at absorption of light in the infrared range, as opposed to UV-visible spectroscopy that looks at absorption of light in the UV-visible range. The 3236 cm-1 peak is the second most prominent peak after the 3107 cm-1 peak, which was finally identified by combining theory with experimental stress results - after nearly 50 years of research.

In this example of a metal-nitrogen defect in diamond, the lattice is composed of one nickel atom (in red) centered in a vacancy where a carbon atom has been removed. The nickel is surrounded by four nitrogen atoms (blue) and two carbon atoms (gray). This defect is labelled as NiN4V (V refers to the vacancy) and is also referred to as NE8, a label used to identify the spectroscopic signature seen in EPR (electron paramagnetic resonance). Illustration by Chloe Peaker/GIA
“I presented promising theoretical results of metal-nitrogen-hydrogen vibrations that are found in this region of the FTIR spectrum, although an identification based on one piece of evidence is unwise,” Peaker said. “I also speculated on the formation pathway by comparing the spatial distribution of the 3236 with the 3107 peak in mixed-habit diamonds.”
Although more work needs to be done to discover what creates the gray-to-blue-violet color in these diamonds, Peaker is eager to continue her research.
“I would love to be the one that discovers what causes the color,” she said. “Knowing what causes it would be the first step to see how the defect responsible could be reproduced or modified. I would like to find out something that could have wider implications in the diamond industry. It is exciting to research the unknown!”
The opportunity for these researchers to present at Princeton-GIA Diamond Symposium gave them access to more information about quantum theory – the study of the nature and behavior of matter and energy at the atomic and subatomic level – and its possible applications in the study of gemstones.
“The conference was well attended and all the speakers seemed to have put a lot of work into their talks,” Ardon said. “There was quite a lot of discussion about new developments in quantum computing and using diamond defects as qubits, which was fascinating to learn about.”
Peaker was impressed by what she learned about quantum computing.
“Quantum computing has grown in (quantum) leaps and bounds,” she said. “It seems like a promising future in materials science as a whole.” @topic:4