Luxury magazine:
May 2022

The trend: conscious fashion choices

Jacquemus

Cut from natural linen, the brand’s latest menswear collection was unveiled in Hawaii, following a traditional blessing giving thanks to the earth.

Y/Project

Longevity is the focus in this new collection. Items can be worn in several ways, such as knitted jumpers with myriad neck and arm holes.

Hermes

Véronique Nichanian celebrates humble, durable materials such as canvas and gaberdine, which are transformed into reversible staples.

Alexander McQueen

Sarah Burton’s spring/summer 2022 collection speaks of the power of nature and the threat of global warming.

Sacai

Embracing sustainability, Sacai has reworked redundant army materials into womenswear, giving items a dual purpose. This dress, for example, coverts into a MA1 jacket by flipping the skirt up.

As Lesa Milan Hall prepares to hit the small screen in ‘The Real Housewives of Dubai’, the former Miss Jamaica talks about building a multimillion-dollar business and showing her sons what a strong, successful woman looks like. By Selina Denman

Lesa Milan Hall may be about to find widespread fame as one of the six cast members of 'The Real Housewives of Dubai", which airs on June 1, but the former Miss Jamaica is keen for people to know that she is more than just “an Insta-mum”.

“I actually take care of my kids full-time while building a multimillion-dollar empire from the ground up,” she says. This, along with her love for Dubai, a city she has called home for nine years, was one of the major drivers behind her decision to appear on the show. “I’m immensely proud of the city that I live in and I loved the idea of showcasing Dubai in a positive light to the rest of the world,” she says.

“I’m also a big believer in empowering women and I wanted to show that it is possible to be a great mum, a devoted wife and a successful business woman – with the hope that I can inspire other women around the world to pursue their dreams and go beyond limitations set by society,” Hall adds.

“As a mother to three little boys, I feel it’s my responsibility to not only teach them to respect women but to also show them, by being a great representation and example of a strong woman.”

Originally hailing from Kingston, Jamaica, Hall began participating in beauty pageants at a young age and went on to be crowned Miss Jamaica in 2010, before competing in the Miss International pageant in Chengdu, China, the same year. She attended Florida Atlantic University, majoring in broadcast journalism and minoring in fashion, before meeting her husband and starting a family with him in Dubai.

She is also the founder of Mina Roe, a maternity-wear brand that aims to offer stylish solutions for pregnancy dressing. The brand was launched five years ago and has already garnered a number of fans around the world, making Hall one of the first women of colour to find success in this space.

“I chose to focus on maternity fashion because it was an area that was often overlooked in the fashion industry, despite pregnancy being a part of most women’s journey,” she says.

“As a mum of three, I understand the importance of wearing clothes that are comfortable but also stylish, and I couldn’t find anything during my pregnancies that matched my style and made me feel good.

“My goal was to create maternity collections that are both fashionable and sustainable, and that you would want to wear even if you weren’t pregnant; offering styles that compete with the very best of non-maternity fashion. I believe my team and I have achieved that,” Hall tells me.

Mina Roe offers everything from swimsuits and jumpsuits to evening gowns, jeans and T-shirts emblazoned with slogans such a “Bumpshell” and “Made With Love”. It has been sported by big-name celebrities, including Gigi Hadid, Serena Williams, Katy Perry, Khloe Kardashian and, most notably for Hall, Beyonce.

“I’ve always admired Beyonce not only as an artist, but also an entrepreneur and fashion icon, so it was an incredible feeling when she wore not one, but two, of our dresses during her last pregnancy. The first piece was our beautiful Yasmin gown in the colour ivory, which she wore to celebrate Easter with her family; and the second was our best-selling Aaliyah cocktail dress in the colour noir, which she was spotted in on date night.”

Part of the brand’s DNA is a focus on sustainability and ethical business practices, with a percentage of every sale going directly to Hall’s Mom2Mum foundation, which works to improve the health of mothers and babies around the world by providing pre and postnatal essentials to those in need.

“We are proud to use ethically sourced fabrics, manufacture in fair trade facilities and ship our products in recycled packaging,” says Hall. “Our garments are also designed to be used beyond their original purpose of maternity wear, allowing women to flatter their post pregnancy shapes and re-wear our stylish clothes for many years. This is important to me because beautiful fashion should not be at the cost of our beautiful planet.”

While Mina Roe has already experienced stellar growth, Hall is seemingly not one to rest on her laurels. “I think Mina Roe is growing at a great pace, and the beautiful thing about that is the more we grow, the more mothers we aid with our Mom2Mum foundation. I hope we continue to grow in the same organic way that we have seen so far, with loyal customers who love our products and tell all their friends about us.”

Depths of tranquility

Amid Abu Dhabi’s mangroves, a celebration of nature complemented by rich greens, zesty limes and woven straw details

Photographer: Mateusz Stefanowski at Art Factory
Videographer: Jear Valasquez
Fashion director: Sarah Maisey
Make-up: Gulum Erzincan at Art Factory
Model: Randa at Art Factory Videographer’s assistant: Zanong Magat
Photographer’s assistant: Sophia Shlykova
With thanks to Jubail Mangrove Park, Jubail Island, Abu Dhabi

Few delicacies are as synonymous with luxury as oysters. Featured on the menus of top restaurants the world over, they are a food of celebration, often enjoyed together in moments of indulgence and joie de vivre.

Globally, an estimated two billion oysters are consumed each year. That’s a lot of shucking – and a whole lot of shells.
For many, it’s unlikely much thought is given to those shells once the Mignonette is sprinkled and the oyster swallowed. But around the world they are being given a new lease of life, including off the coast of Dubai.

The Dubai Oyster Project is the brainchild of Joey Ghazal, founder of The Maine group, which across its three brasseries is one of the city’s biggest purveyors of oysters, selling more than 50,000 a month.

“Oysters are, in my opinion, the best way to start any meal,” Ghazal says. “We regularly feature more than 12 varieties from around the world, including Atlantic, Pacific, European Flats and local Dibba Bay oysters.”

The project’s mission is to repurpose the shells of these oysters, putting them back into the ocean to create new reefs and habitats where wildlife, including the endangered Hawksbill turtle, can thrive.

Ghazal co-founded the project with long-time friend and keen environmentalist Fadi Abu Ghali. “Joey came to me and said: ‘Listen, we sell 50,000 oysters a month and these shells are going to waste. I would love to do something with that waste and to give back. And not only to give back, but also have our diners give back’,” Abu Ghali says.

Abu Ghali is a board member at Dubai’s The Arbor School, which teaches eco-literacy and environmental justice through a hands-on curriculum that often gets students out into nature.

“I went and spoke to the board of the school and it was decided the oysters would be introduced into the school’s curriculum, bringing the shells in from The Maine restaurants and giving them to the students, who could then take those shells and put them into various contraptions, which are then planted back into the water as reefs,” Abu Ghali says.

It is hoped these reefs, placed at Nakheel Waterfront close to Jebel Ali, will become important ecological sites in Dubai’s waters. Oyster reefs not only create a habitat for fish and marine life, they provide the building blocks on which young oyster larvae depend, attaching to the hard shell substrate provided by reefs to grow.

“The students are then going back to the reefs to look at growth and look at what has worked and what hasn’t, with the scientists and the educators,” Abu Ghali says. “We are all learning, but you should see the look on the students’ faces when they are actually out in nature doing things that make a difference.”

Working alongside the Emirates Marine Environmental Group, it is hoped the project, which has been running for close to two years, will be expanded across the UAE and region, with more restaurants and organisations wanting to be involved. “I’ve got restaurants and schools knocking on our door saying ‘please can we participate’,” says Abu Ghali. “They are not only keen; they are super excited to get involved. It’s a feel-good story.”

The Maine also ensures its customers know all about the project whenever they order oysters. “Our guests love the fact that the oysters they are consuming are finding their way back to the sea,” Ghazal says. “We have received countless requests from parents who want their own kids to be involved in this initiative. We hope to be able to get more children involved as the programme grows and evolves.”

And for Ghazal, the project is three-fold, not only promoting marine biodiversity and contributing to the education of future generations, but helping to tackle one of his industry’s most pressing issues – food waste.

“These shells would ordinarily end up in landfills, so the idea really started as a solution to tackle a waste problem,” he says. “We very much hope that by raising awareness for this programme we can inspire other restaurants and hotels to donate their oyster shells. We have already donated more than 400,000 shells from The Maine alone, so you can imagine how many more we can donate if all the restaurants and hotels were to get involved.”

For Abu Ghali, the project is also poignant given the UAE’s rich history with oysters and pearl diving. “Oysters have always been important in the UAE, so it’s almost like it’s come full circle,” he says. “Until people stop eating seafood altogether, this is a way we can contribute. The goal in the end is to leave the ocean alone, but until we reach that, it’s good to feel like we are doing something.”

This custom-built four-bedroom property combines multicultural design elements with stunning sea views

Traditional West Indian, southern Californian and Caribbean island influences jostle for space in this luxury villa in the Bahamian capital of Nassau.

Serenade is the personal creation of a custom-builder and businessman who describes the property as “a matter of the heart”. The 7,500-square-foot home is set on 17,400 square feet of land that looks out over Nassau’s turquoise waters. Perched on a cliff above the sea, the house features four large bedrooms, five full bathrooms, a separate kitchen and laundry room, and a caretaker’s unit that can be accessed privately.

The terraced landscape contains hand-chiselled limestone walls and fountains, meandering coral stone steps, and gardens brimming with yellow allamanda, pink dipladenia and purple showers. The house is currently on the market via Damianos Sotheby’s International Realty for $3.95 million.

Ornamental metal gates lead to an exterior entrance foyer which, in turn, leads to the custom-made mahogany front door. Inside are intricate architectural millwork features and distinct interior finishes, including double ceilings in every room, wide plank ceramic flooring and granite and marble surfaces throughout the property.

The design’s multicultural aspect is particularly evident in the kitchen, where Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances sit alongside custom-crafted cabinets by an artisan from the Blue Ridge Mountains in the US, black granite countertops from South America, and limestone and pebble surfaces from the Caribbean.

The second storey of the house is home to more than 800 square feet of walk-in wardrobe space, while the owner’s private study and library features a large built-in workstation and wide casement picture windows overlooking the sea.

The property’s infinity pool seems to extend into the ocean beyond, while a natural limestone pool deck offers 180-degree views of the water. There are outdoor showers, an outdoor kitchen and an integrated Bose sound system to provide the soundtrack to your al fresco lounging. Additional amenities include a fully equipped home gym, a two-car garage and a boat parking deck.

“I wanted the home to be unpretentious yet elegant; and provide a seamless indoor/outdoor living environment filled with natural light and soft colours,” says the property’s owner. “The finish materials are warm and inviting to the touch. The home evokes a very personal, visceral attachment to the sea.”

Energy efficiency was also a key consideration during the build process. The home is completely solar-powered and includes an integrated water treatment system with multimedia filtration, UV disinfection and reverse osmosis ultra-purification, along with a 90,920-litre rainwater holding cistern.

The property is gated and surrounded by high boundary walls. A state-of-the-art security set-up includes a CCTV camera system with integrated exterior security lighting. Fitted with hurricane impact windows and exterior doors, the house is engineered and constructed to be impervious to Category 5 hurricane conditions. The property’s owner will also qualify for permanent residency in the Bahamas.

‘It had to be 30 Avenue Montaigne’

Paris’s 30 Avenue Montaigne is the beating heart of Dior. On December 15, 1947, Christian Dior launched his maison at this landmark address, a former “hôtel particulier”, built in 1865 by Count Colonna-Walewski, son of Napoleon I. “It had to be 30 Avenue Montaigne. I was going to settle here and nowhere else,” the designer said of his choice.

Since then, the premises have been the site of historic fashion shows, including the unveiling of Dior’s landmark New Look collection and Miss Dior fragrance, and have hosted hordes of illustrious guests, including poet Jean Cocteau and actress Marlene Dietrich.

This “refuge of the marvellous” has now reopened after a two-year renovation. Set over 10,000 square metres, the new space captures all the Dior codes, acting as an ode to the past, to heritage, savoir faire and modernity, and to luxury and purity.

It also reiterates Christian’s affinity with architecture. “I wanted to be an architect; being a fashion designer, I’m obliged to follow the laws and principles of architecture,” the designer said during a lecture at the Sorbonne in 1955.

Much of the building’s original charm has been retained. The historic facade has been subtly restored, while elaborate balconies, spiral scrolls and ornamental sculptures have been maintained. Inside, the breadth of the Dior universe is showcased, from the intricacy of haute couture and fine jewellery, to the worlds of beauty, gastronomy, giving and living.

Architect Peter Marino envisaged the design of the building’s 2,000-square-metre boutique as a “kind of theatre or set design in which many different plays could unfold”. Christian Dior’s love of art is referenced in a series of works positioned throughout the space, from Bourrasque, a poetic installation by designer Paul Cocksedge that seems to float like a flurry of leaves, to a specially commissioned work by media artist Jennifer Steinkamp that features a large video installation of flowers in motion. A composition by Joël Andrianomearisoa is crafted from Dior silk scarves, while oils on canvas by Alberto Bertoldi decorate the fitting rooms.

The boutique will offer a series of exclusives, including classics such as the Lady Dior and Dior Book Tote bags, silk squares and Dior Mizza shoes that have been reimagined by artist Pietro Ruffo. A new line of jewellery takes direct inspiration from the newly reinvented 30 Avenue Montaigne, while a numbered edition of Eau de Parfum Miss Dior, limited to 100 pieces worldwide, is presented in a miniature trunk.

Dior collections have been created in the salons of 30 Avenue Montaigne for 75 years and, in celebration of this legacy, the space is now home to La Galerie Dior, an exhibition space that pays tribute to Christian himself, as well as his six successors, Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons and Maria Grazia Chiuri.

It showcases creations, original sketches and archival documents, most of which are on display for the first time, as well as accessories and exceptional pieces such as the Soirée Brillante gown from the autumn/winter 1955 haute couture collection.
Visitors can round off their experience with a stop at Le Restaurant Monsieur Dior, which offers a carefully curated menu that is inspired by the history of the maison, or La Pâtisserie Dior, which looks out over a sumptuous rose garden and offers a delectable selection of sweet treats.

Large and wasteful, hotels have a bad rep when it comes to environmental friendliness. But a new breed of smaller, independent properties could be game changers, writes Adriaane Pielou

Traditionally, hotels set standards. They were among the first buildings in the world to have hot running water, flushing lavatories, electric lights, central heating and, later, air conditioning. But standards change – and few hotels are at the forefront of showing how sustainability is the way forward.

It’s been 30 years since the UN’s first Earth Summit took place in Rio in 1992, which prompted the arrival of those little notices on hotel bedside tables explaining the water and energy-saving benefits of not having your sheets changed every day.

In 2011, Four Seasons tapped into the zeitgeist by marking Earth Day – and the brand’s 50th anniversary – with its global sapling-planting Million Trees initiative. More recently, footage of turtles choked to death by plastic straws has shamed the world’s largest hotel groups, Marriott and InterContinental, as well as Hyatt, Hilton, Accor and others, into using paper or bamboo straws instead. But most hotels have yet to fulfil their massive potential with regards to eco-friendly operations.

Hotels, especially members of large groups, are still wanton users of water, with up to 200 gallons utilised per occupied room per day, even in places where locals eke it out by the bucketful. They are equally profligate with energy – the highest users of energy of any commercial building, according to Washington DC’s Urban Land Institute’s Sustainability in Hotels report.

They are serial wasters of food, with buffets and banquets the worst offenders and some kitchens routinely throwing out 40 or 50 per cent of what their chefs buy in, according to a World Wildlife study. And they are responsible for a good part of the unrecyclable plastic that each year packs landfills across the planet, never to decompose, a high proportion in the form of the miniature shampoos and conditioners we all used to like and now hate.

Sustainability is no longer just a trend. It’s a necessity. A tenet of the post-Covid “new normal” is that wasteful old ways must stop. And with Google recently introducing a new eco-certification badge, placing it next to the names of hotels whose sustainability efforts have been certified by Green Key or EarthCheck – tourism’s leading global scientific benchmarking, certification and advisory groups – it’s clear that commercial suicide looms for hotels that don’t start getting up to speed.

Almost 75 per cent of travellers polled for a recent Booking.com survey agreed that everyone should begin to make sustainable travel choices to help conserve the planet for future generations. Hot on the heels of the vaguely eco baby boomers and eco-aware millennials, Greta Thunberg-inspired Gen Zers such as Force of Nature founder Clover Hogan, 22, are eco-hyper-militant. There’s a cohort that will be demanding that any hotel they check into is a paragon of eco-virtue.

Meanwhile, of the 5 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions that the travel industry as a whole produces, hotels are estimated to be responsible for 20 per cent. That’s mostly via heating, air conditioning and restaurant refrigeration. For a hotel to be sustainable in this day and age, as well as being designed with respect for the local environment, built with minimal damage to the area, and with a non-contaminating waste-management plan in place from the start, prudent energy and water use must be a priority.

As much as possible, energy supplies should be renewable, and hotels should operate efficient fresh and grey-water management systems. In addition, properties should support the local community by buying local produce and hiring local people. Furniture should be recycled rather than bought new. All packaging should be reusable, recyclable and biodegradable. Edible unused food should be donated; peelings and scraps composted; and a garden built to supply some kitchen produce and mitigate carbon dioxide emissions. LED lights should be installed and key cards used to automatically switch off lights when guests remove them to exit their room.

Obviously it’s easier to get three or 30 hotels to comply with such demands, rather than 300 or 30,000. Understandably, then, from Aman to Wilderness and Zetter, it’s the hoteliers behind small, independent hotel groups that have been embracing such policies.

Oliver Ripley is the tech and real estate entrepreneur driving the eco-oriented Habitas. After impressing friends with the pop-up shelters he built at Nevada’s Burning Man festival, Ripley became fascinated with the opportunities modular construction, or prefabrication, offered on a larger scale.

He opened his first hotel in 2017, the beachside Habitas Tulum, in Mexico. A few months ago, he unveiled his latest, Habitas AlUla, in Saudi Arabia. In the vast emptiness of the north-west of the country, the 96-room Habitas AlUla is, with its yoga deck, swimming pool and wellness centre, almost as novel as its setting.

Unlike a typical hotel, which involves a disruptive, polluting, on-site construction period of four to five years, and “some of the least sustainable and most inefficient practices in the world”, a Habitas hotel can be built in six to nine months. After they are manufactured in a factory in Mexico – from naturally sourced, fully sustainable materials – rooms are flat-packed and delivered via a shipping container.

Assembly on-site then takes four months. “A much more efficient way of building,” Ripley says. “The hospitality industry is a dinosaur. A new approach was long overdue.”

Despite the problems presented by working on the Saudi project during the pandemic, including global supply challenges and the fact the team couldn’t visit the site for six months, thanks to this construction method, the project remained on track. “It was signed and opened in just a little over 12 months. We tapped into the creativity of local Saudi artisans to develop elements inside the hotel – furniture, art, food – to support the community and develop micro-economies, and sourced ingredients for the restaurant and wellness centre from local farmers.”

Luxury used to be “a big lobby and a marble bathroom”, Ripley says. “Now it’s disconnecting, reconnecting, being in nature. Sitting under the stars and having a conversation, connecting with people around amazing experiences. We are living in an age where guests prioritise experiences over material possessions. We all need to do more to protect our planet, and guests now are choosing to stay in places where sustainability is not an afterthought.”

Elsewhere, the eco measures practised by environmental pioneer Sonu Shivdasani, founder of the Soneva and Six Senses brands, have been especially influential. The “barefoot luxury” ethos he established over 25 years ago at Soneva Fushi in the Maldives, with its palm-thatched roofs, bare sand floors, open-air bathrooms, Flintstone-type sustainable-wood furniture and careful waste-management, has evolved into the sustainable glamour of newer resorts across the tropics.

One such is the Maldives’s $2,190-a-night Joali. A two-island resort, it opened in 2018, built on biophilic design principles – a system of integrating architecture with nature. The UAE’s Silvena Rowe is its wellness chef consultant, advising on the plant-based menus. Marine biologists have set up floating coral nurseries and a turtle rehab centre. Fish is sourced not from Miami wholesalers, as is typical, but local line fishermen, and there is a commitment to hiring local women.

In India, Veer Singh set a superlative standard in 2014 when he opened his all-organic retreat Vana, no doubt inspiring Pench Tree Lodge with its tree houses and underground wildlife hide. In Bali, the iconoclastic architect Rem Koolhaas and his design company OMO have garnered numerous fans for its Potato Head beach hotels, with furniture made from compressed beach litter, ceilings woven from recycled plastic waste, and zero-waste bamboo bathroom amenity kits.

In Cambodia, long-term advocate of sustainability, Bill Bensley, designed Shinta Mani Wild to minimally disturb its jungle setting. No trees were cut down to make space for the 15 tents. At the Song Saa island retreat, owners Rory and Melita Hunter have raised $1.5 million for local causes and funded more than 40 US doctors for stays during which they ran pop-up medical clinics for local people.

Elsewhere, forward-thinkers-turned-hoteliers include the team behind the electricity-free Hideout on Koh Yao Noi in Thailand, with four open-air tree houses in the jungle, and, in Egypt, Mounir Neamatalla, who founded the also electricity-free, beeswax-candle and gas-lamp lit Adrere Amellal near Siwa. Here, guests bathe in a spring-fed pool, eat delectable meals sourced from the garden, and sleep in lodges made from kershaf, a traditional mix of clay, sand and salt.

Switzerland has the whizzes behind the geodesic domes of the Whitepod Eco-Luxury resort in the Swiss Alps, which even in the depths of winter require 30 per cent less energy to warm than conventional rooms, and in Basel, the Gaia. A member of Bio Hotels and United Against Waste, the Gaia runs on 100 per cent renewable energy (wind, solar and biomass), uses only organic products, has planted more than 2,000 trees and passes on its stale bread to elephants at the local zoo.

London, too, has its dynamos dedicated to sustainability. Those behind The Corner in Whitechapel claim it’s the greenest hotel in the capital. It opened last autumn in a derelict office block and has a “green leader” to drive eco initiatives. Guest desks are made of reclaimed wood. Air-injecting Hansgrohe Airdrop shower heads reduce water use by 25 per cent without affecting pressure. Filtered water is provided in sanitised, refilled glass bottles, every room has a plant and there are solar panels on the roof – soon to be joined by beehives. All that means the hotel uses 41 per cent less water and produces 67 per cent lower carbon dioxide emissions than a typical London hotel.

Excellent, one thinks, although breakfasts being “made from leftovers to minimise food waste” might give one pause. Already, however, they have competition, with the founders of the even more recently opened Room2 Chiswick, which calls itself the world’s “first whole life net zero hotel”, aiming to outdo all that and claim the “greenest” title.
Onwards and upwards.

Rock solid

Rahul Kadakia, international head of jewellery for Christie’s, shows Sarah Maisey some remarkable lots

“This is what a diamond should look like,” says Rahul Kadakia, international head of jewellery for Christie’s, about the huge white diamond nestled in a protective case near by. The size of a bantam egg, the pear-cut, 228.31-carat gem is the largest white diamond ever to come to auction.

“And it’s heavy. It’s almost 50 grams in your hand,” says Kadakia. “It’s a perfectly cut, super brilliant stone; look at it from any angle and it’s brilliant, blinding. That is what you want the biggest diamond in the world to look like.”

So large it is dubbed The Rock, the gem was part of a Christie’s touring exhibition of magnificent jewels that travelled from Dubai to Taipei and Geneva before arriving in New York to be auctioned on May 11. The Rock’s debut in Dubai is an important marker of how the Middle East market is currently perceived by the world’s biggest auction houses.

“Dubai has always been a big and important market for us, and over the years it has grown and grown. It’s a great market. So is China, so is Europe, so is the US, but they were developed markets. The Middle East? They learnt very quickly and they started buying the best,” says Kadakia.

With up to 60 per cent of the Mena population currently under the age of 35, the region has also been critical in bolstering a new sector of the Christie’s business. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, Christie’s, like everyone else, had to navigate a new world. The house quickly pivoted to online sales, expanding the array of high value art, handbags, jewellery and watches offered via digital auctions. This fast turnaround has proved successful, triggering growth of 150 per cent between 2020 and 2021, with sales of almost $1 billion. This was also driven by a 30 per cent increase in new customers, a sizeable portion of whom were born after 1981.

“Of the 52 per cent of new buyers we saw from the Middle East region in 2021, a quarter of those were millennials,” Kadakia explains. This is a generation for whom researching and buying online is second nature. Case in point, Kadakia says: “We sold a diamond last year for $2.5 million, online, and the person who bought it hadn’t even seen it.”

This consumer confidence is bolstered by the auction house’s age and reputation. Founded in 1766, it has established itself as a centre of expertise and knowledge over three centuries. “It gives the customers a lot of confidence knowing they are buying from Christie’s, because if Christie’s says this is a flawless, D-coloured diamond being offered online, then that’s what he or she is going to receive.”

Despite the boom in online sales, the most notable and spectacular items are still often sold in the auction room, with all the excitement and theatre that offers. Kadakia was the auctioneer for The Rock sale in New York.

His history with this particular stone goes back two decades, to when it was still a rough diamond mined out of South Africa. “I know the owner who bought the rough diamond. He called me and said: ‘How should I fashion the stone?’ The rough was almost 500 carats, so you make a model of it, and keep mapping and mapping it to see what is the best way to cut, to have the best output. An oval? Two stones, three stones? Or, as the polisher for this diamond did, do you say, maybe I will make more money if I cut a couple of smaller stones, but I just want to go for the biggest and the best.”

While The Rock is spectacular, it is now less than half the weight of the original rough. “That’s why diamonds are so expensive. You can find them, but you have to lose so much of the rough material to turn it into a brilliant stone.”

Kadakia proceeds to bring out a vast yellow stone. Called the Red Cross Diamond, it was mined from the De Beers Kimberley mines in South Africa in 1901, was sold at a Christie’s auction in 1918 to benefit the Red Cross and the Order of St John, sold again at Christie’s in 1978, and is being offered by Christie’s once again this year.

The ninth-largest diamond in the world, the Red Cross Diamond is an impressive 205.07 carats, and is an exceedingly rare canary yellow colour, placing it with the 0.1 per cent of diamonds that have this classification. Cushion shaped, it is stellar-brilliant cut stone, and has the eight-pointed star of the Order of St John clearly visible. It was offered at auction alongside The Rock in New York, and to honour its history, the sellers said they would gift the Red Cross up to $2m from the proceeds.

“Rare coloured diamonds, on a price per carat basis, will always be more expensive than white diamonds, because there is a lot less production. The Rock diamond is an anomaly, because it doesn’t matter if it’s coloured or white – you just don’t get a diamond this size.”

Any suggestion that anyone could soon enjoy a lab-grown diamond of similar scale is quickly brushed aside. “The larger you go with a lab-grown diamond, the more it will go away from the optical characteristics of a real diamond.

“The hardness is what gives a diamond its brilliance. The harder the gemstone, the more the shine of the stone. So even though lab-grown diamonds have the exact same properties – same weight, same specific gravity – in smaller sizes that brilliance is not quite the same. But once you start growing it big, you will notice that there is something off about the stone,” Kadakia explains.

As Kadakia speaks, a man walks into the showroom and is shown to a table, where both stones are laid out in front of him. “That is one of the potential buyers,” Kadakia quietly explains. With the would-be buyer normal to the point of nondescript, Kadakia explains that such anonymity is normal at this level. “He doesn’t want anyone fussing around him, and just wants to be left alone to drink his coffee. But he is thinking about it.”

Why anyone would need two of the world’s largest diamonds is anyone’s guess, but as Kadakia explains, with this type of sale, different rules apply. “We could have a hedge fund director who decides to buy to divest into portable assets at this moment, and then wait for diamond prices to get even higher. Or you have heads of state, most certainly, or a billionaire who chooses to buy it for the family and use it one day for an occasion.

“Or perhaps, it will be someone just for the bragging rights of owning the biggest diamond in the world. You can never tell.”