Set in Stone

By Sophie Tedmanson

In a boutique jewellery store window in central Copenhagen, just a block back from the Amalienborg Royal Palace, radiant diamonds are glistening in the spring sunshine. But these are no ordinary diamonds: they are pink, precious pink diamonds from the Australian Outback. “Pink diamonds are rare, they are beautiful and they are highly sought after,” says Ulrik Hartmann, owner of Hartmann’s boutique, one of the top rare gems experts in Scandinavia who specialises in Australian pink diamonds. “People really like the pink diamonds, they like the beauty, they like the colour, they like the history, they like that they came from such a long journey.” Some say it is a miracle that pink diamonds were discovered in an extremely remote part of Western Australia in 1979, when a geologist spotted sparkles in an ant hill. More than three decades later, the pink diamond global luxury jewellery market is booming, and little pieces of the Kimberley are glistening on fingers, earlobes and around the necks of the rich, famous and royal all over the world. And 90 per cent of them are found in one mine: Rio Tinto’s Argyle mine in the East Kimberley region of the far north of Western Australia.

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Originally published by Vogue