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The Top 5 Diamond Watches of all Time: Graff Diamonds’ ‘The Fascination’
The idea of the wristwatch came hundreds of years after the invention of the pocket watch. Scholars attribute the original example of the latter to Peter Henlein around 1510, and the former to Abraham-Louis Breguet in 1805 or thereabouts.
It would take a long time after that for the wristwatch to gain any sort of popularity. For the first hundred years or so, ‘wristlets’ as they were called took the form of frail and delicate pieces of aristocratic jewelry, marketed solely to high born ladies. In the middle of what was basically an ornate bracelet would sit a tiny watch face that, due to the technological limitations of the time, was more decorative adornment than functional timekeeper—those who could afford such things were rarely called on to keep to a schedule anyway.
Of course, that all changed in the 1900s when the convenience of the wristwatch became clear and it was transformed into a particularly masculine item. So much so that, by the mid-20th century, the pocket watch was all but obsolete.
However, with all things being not so much equal as cyclical, some of the most stunning timepieces of modern times harken back to those formative wristlet days, and amongst the most spectacular of them all comes from London-based jewelers, Graff.
The Fascination
Let’s get something out of the way right up front; Graff’s 2015 opus The Fascination costs $40m.
Is that too much to spend on a watch? Quite possibly, yes. But hang on; what if I told you for that handy one-time payment you get not only the watch but also an enormous diamond bracelet and a massive diamond ring? Ah, now it’s starting to look like a bargain.
The frugal shopper’s favorite (*Like and subscribe for more money-saving tips) is accepted as the most valuable transformable timepiece ever made. So what does it consist of?
The highly sculptural work of art centers around an extraordinary pear-shaped diamond, with a weight of some 38.13 carats and a color and clarity of the highest possible grade. That means the stone is of purest white and has no internal or external inclusions; flawless, in other words.
The main diamond is key to The Fascination’s intriguing USP. It can serve as centerpiece to form an absolutely breathtaking bracelet. Or, in an impressive feat of engineering, it can be removed and fitted into a bespoke shank to become a ring. In that case, the gap in the bracelet is filled with a preposterously bejeweled timepiece, giving whichever member of the 0.0001% who takes ownership a variety of wearing options.
Obviously, for $40m, you would expect more than one diamond, unique and near-priceless as it may be. That’s why the rest of The Fascination is replete with a further 152.96 carats worth of stones, each invisibly set to cover every millimeter and ingeniously arranged so that the whole bracelet is flexible and, by all accounts, extremely comfortable to wear.
Viewed as a whole, The Fascination seems to bristle, its surface a chaotic ensemble denoting unprecedented opulence.
Who is Graff?
Graff Diamonds is one of the most prestigious and well-known luxury jewelry houses in the world.
It was founded in 1960 by ‘King of Diamonds’ Laurence Graff OBE. Born in 1938 in Stepney in London’s East End (if you’re unfamiliar with Stepney, it’s probably for the best) to Jewish immigrant parents, Graff left school at 15 and went to work as an apprentice in the city’s historic jewelry quarter, Hatton Garden (the same area where Rolex started out as Wilsdorf & Davis).
By 18 he had co-founded his own business repairing Victorian jewelry. Four years later, Graff branched out on his own when he established his eponymous firm. By 1962, he had expanded to two stores in Hatton Garden and in the 1970s, began focusing on selling high value articles to clients in the Middle East, including the Sultan of Brunei.
Today, Graff Diamonds is a global empire with more than 50 boutiques worldwide in locations such as New York, Paris, Tokyo and Dubai. Renowned not only for its exceptional craftsmanship but also its complete vertical integration, the company oversees every stage of its creative process, from the sourcing of the finest quality stones to the final retail.
Graff owns a major stake in a South African diamond mine and over the years has handled some of the industry’s most iconic stones. The Graff Pink, for instance, a 24.78 carat Fancy Intense Pink diamond with VVS2 clarity once belonging to Harry Winston, was acquired by the company at auction in 2010 for the then-record price of $46,158,674.
Another, the Lesedi La Rona, a rough diamond weighing in at an unbelievable 1,109 carats, was bought for $53m in 2017 and cut into a 302.37 carat square emerald-cut diamond—the largest of its kind ever produced.
Graff was appointed an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 2013 for services to the jewelry industry and his company remains a family-owned one. François Graff, Laurence’s son, now acts as CEO.
Who Made The Fascination?
The making of The Fascination was, unsurprisingly, a collaborative effort. It was actually led by Laurence Graff himself, at the age of 77, alongside a team of highly skilled designers led by design director Anne-Eva Geffroy.
Holder of two Master’s degrees in luxury design, Geffroy studied at the prestigious École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs school in Paris, and joined Graff in 2010 via stints at Louis Vuitton and Van Cleef & Arpels.
As head of her five-man team, Geffroy and Graff produce about 200 pieces a month. Alongside a comprehensive range of transcendent jewelry, the company has been creating spectacular watches since 2008, with the London studio keeping close ties with their Geneva-based horology workshops. Diamonds obviously play a major role in Graff’s timepiece collection, with perhaps their most successful being the Butterfly series. Lavish but never gaudy, this range features bejeweled representations of the winged insects arranged around a central watch face which, like The Fascination, are powered by quartz.
Conclusion
As with the aristocratic ladies wristlets all those years ago, Graff’s masterpiece has little to do with watchmaking and everything to do with crafting the most peacockish creation possible. As breathtaking as it is, pieces such as this are an acquired taste, appealing to a small cross section of the population. Which is just as well, what with the mere handful of people with the ability to buy it.
On that score, who owns The Fascination? Well, at time of writing, Graff does. Whether or not the company has attempted to find a buyer or not, the item remains in the hands of its architects, acting as a showcase for what the very best in the business can do.
Featured Photo: Mixed art by Oriol Mendivil for BKT Archive.
