News Tiffany & Co launches new advertising campaign with Beyoncé Award-winning US singer Beyoncé has partnered with Tiffany & Co for the luxury jewellery company’s latest campaign, ‘Lose Yourself in Love’. As a part of the campaign, the singer is wearing a piece from the Tiffany HardWear collection, made specifically for the campaign. With 18-carat gold links, the piece reportedly took more than 40 hours to assemble and polish. "I am honored to continue the partnership with Tiffany & Co. and to explore even deeper how beautiful our connections are, when we truly celebrate the relationship and importance of love that we have for ourselves as individuals.",” she told ELLE. Beyoncé, who recently released her seventh solo album, became an ambassador for the Tiffany & Co brand in 2021. The partnership was formed shortly after French luxury conglomerate Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) acquired Tiffany & Co and initially, provoked backlash among consumers. Titled ‘About Love’, the campaign paid homage to Audrey Hepburn’s performance in the 1961 film Breakfast At Tiffany’s, with Beyoncé wearing a form-fitting black gown and the legendary Tiffany Diamond, a 128.54-carat canary yellow stone set in a diamond pendant. Just three women – Lady Gaga, Audrey Hepburn, and socialite Mary Whitehouse, had previously worn the Tiffany Diamond. The campaign ‘made history’ in the sense that Beyoncé was the first woman of colour to wear the Tiffany Diamond. However, social media users were quick to point out that the diamond was unearthed at the Kimberley Mine in South Africa in 1877, while the region was still under British colonial rule. Beyoncé’s decision to wear the Tiffany Diamond was described by some a tacit endorsement for colonialism, with some social media users declaring the diamond to be a ‘blood diamond’. The Tiffany Diamond does not meet the criteria which defines a blood diamond, according to the United Nations. According to Insider, Beyoncé was reportedly unaware of the history of the diamond prior to the launch of the campaign. For others – including Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah – the blame lies with Tiffany & Co. "The 'About Love' campaign fiasco with Beyoncé lies largely with Tiffany & Co," Attiah wrote on Twitter. "It's the familiar new trend of white companies using black women 'firsts' to rebrand themselves as socially conscious — while avoiding meaningfully dealing with their troubling history/practices. "I find it astonishing that no one on the Tiffany & Co team or Team Beyoncé said - 'hey maybe wearing our huge diamond from the notorious colonial Kimberley mine in South Africa isn’t a good look for a campaign about black love and excellence'." Returning to the upcoming ‘Lose Yourself in Love’ campaign, and Tiffany & Co vice president of product and communication, Alexandre Arnault, said the company was honoured to welcome the return of the singer. “Beyoncé is an inspiration to so many because she embodies these qualities,” he said. Did ancient sea creatures help create the Queen’s diamonds? Following the death of Queen Elizabeth there has been renewed interest in the history of the Royal family’s gemstones and diamonds. While there has been calls for the return of the infamous Koh-i-Noor to India, it, along with the Cullinan II (also known as the Second Star of Africa), are believed to be ‘super-deep’ diamonds. According to science website Physorg.com, “An analysis of the first large diamonds confirmed to come from deep under the Earth's surface supports initial predictions showing that the Smithsonian's famous Hope diamond may be ‘super deep’, originating from more than three times deeper in the Earth than most diamonds. “It also suggests, in a new finding, that the ‘Crown Jewels’ Cullinan diamond may also be a superdeep diamond.” The research comes from a study by Dr. Evan Smith of the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) and was presented at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference last year. "We examined the first large gem diamonds confirmed to originate from Earth's lower mantle, which is several times deeper than most other diamonds. The results support earlier predictions based on smaller gems, suggesting that diamonds with properties similar to those studied, including both the Cullinan and Hope diamonds, are super-deep diamonds”, Smith explained. Smaller diamonds are known to materialise under high pressure at a relatively shallow depth of 140-200 kilometres amid oxygen-rich rocks. By contrast, the biggest diamonds are likely forming 140-200 kilometres below the surface within patches of oxygen-deprived liquid metal, hence the term ‘super deep’. A BBC report published on Friday states that “The largest diamonds in the British Crown Jewels may be pieces of the ancient ocean floor, which have drifted down into the interior of our planet – then come back up again.” BBC Future senior journalist Zaria Gorvett explained, “some of the carbon in super-deep diamonds may be from ancient sea creatures, which were buried in oceanic plates that subsequently drifted down into the mantle”. She notes, “Nearly 120 years later, the megadiamond [Cullinan] has not been forgotten. During the late Queen Elizabeth II's funeral procession, several of the Cullinan's descendants were placed on the Monarch's coffin, and rode along with her – they were only removed as she was lowered into the royal vault. “That's because today these giant gems are part of the Crown Jewels, normally kept in the Tower of London and brought out for state events – the Cullinan I now resides in the British Sovereign's Sceptre, while its next-largest sibling, the Cullinan II, is embedded in the Imperial State Crown.” The 2020 study by Smith - along with Wuyi Wang, GIA vice president research – analysed the 124-carat diamond and found that it formed at the deeper end of the possible range – at least 660km (410 miles) below the Earth's surface. 30 | <strong>October</strong> <strong>2022</strong>
Anyone can make a claim, but unfortunately exaggeration is a blood relative of falsehood and fiction. As they say, the devil is in the details. Numbers lead you to the detail and the detail leads you to facts.
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