FULL CIRCLE

In Bangkok for the Legend of Diamonds exhibition, which showcases creations crafted from the exceptional 910-carat Lesotho Legend rough diamond, president of Van Cleef & Arpels (Asia Pacific) Nicolas Luchsinger takes us deep into the maison's past and present, and his lifelong passion for jewellery.

- ALLYSON KLASS

Why did the maison decide to launch two chapters for Legend of Diamonds?

When we started on the first chapter with the Lesotho Legend, we didn't know right away what we wanted to do with the rough diamond, but we knew that we wanted to mount it with our Mystery Setting.

While we typically launch one high jewellery collection a year, we sometimes launch a second if there's a special project like this one. When we decided to for chapter one, the Legend of Diamonds 25 Mystery Set Jewels, we saw that there weren't enough jewellery pieces as we were launching the collection at a global event held in Paris last June.

We also needed more pieces to build a more complete story around diamonds, so the second chapter of White Diamond Variations was created to showcase our legitimacy in diamonds.

Our high jewellery collections usually travel around the world. Making their debut in Asia and the Asia-Pacific, some of the pieces from both collections of Legend of Diamonds are here now in Bangkok. Before this, they were in the US.

Tell us more about the second chapter, White Diamond Variations.

It's something of a triptych because we started with a high jewellery collection with emeralds seven years ago, followed by rubies and now, diamonds. So we've covered three of the most important precious stones. We were a little more creative with this chapter, so what you see are two separate collections with different influences.

What do you hope for people to take away from the second chapter?

I love how creative this collection is. For instance, when you think of a traditional diamond necklace, it can be boring because it's symmetrical, but here, there's lots of inspiration from couture and our archive pieces. I want people to see that you can have a very important diamond necklace that's both original and creative.