These boots were made for diamonds

The black leather ankle boots, completely covered in 1,550 carats of natural fancy coloured champagne, grey and pink diamonds, were “road tested” by members of Nationwide Jewellers who attended the buying group’s trip to Antwerp last month.

 

The shoes were manufactured by diamond dealer Diarough – members attended its office as part of the trip’s schedule – and designed by Antwerp-based designers An Vandevorst and Filip Arickx for the Business of Design Week held in Hong Kong in December 2013. 

 

In total, the boots required 30,000 hours to produce and were set with 38,883 diamonds and 4,753 grams of gold. 

 

During the trip, which was held from 15–21 March, the buying group’s members also attended a seminar on synthetic diamonds at the HRD Antwerp laboratory.

 

HRD Antwerp Institute of Gemmology research manager Dr Ellen Biermans described the various processes being used to create diamonds, and how their properties differed from natural diamonds. Biermans also demonstrated the equipment used at the HRD to identify lab-created diamonds, which is reportedly able to identify synthetic diamonds with 100 per cent certainty.

 

The seminar could be considered timely, given Sydney-based Gem Studies Laboratory recently identified a parcel of yellow diamonds as synthetic, despite being purchased as natural stones. 

 

While there is some concern about synthetic diamonds appearing in parcels of natural diamonds, the HRD is said to only come across two or three per month, out of thousands that are screened prior to certification.