You know Jonathan Ive and Marc Newson right? Just the most prolific designers of their age, working as design heads in the most profitable company in the world, Apple. Ive and Newson have altered how we treat consumer electronics, making us revere them as objects of fashion, and their latest design project may be less electronics and more fashion, but it echoes a sensibility and sensitivity that has for long been a culture within Apple.
Apple has been an integral part of RED (a nonprofit organization that partners with the iconic brands to raise money to fight HIV / AIDS in Africa through the Global Fund), designing special products for RED that contribute to RED’s fight against HIV and AIDS. You may remember the special RED edition iPhones from the past, or the special-edition Leica M that Ive and Newson designed which sold for a cool $1.8 million at RED’s auction.
Ive and Newson’s contribution to RED this year is a diamond ring, made in collaboration with Diamond Foundry®. Designed by the duo, the ring is different from most diamond rings, in the sense that it is 100% diamond. The ring is made from the diamond gemstone itself and doesn’t feature any metal or other gemstones. “Consistent with their mutual obsession with transforming raw material into objects of value, Ive & Newson’s design is singular, clear and un-compromised by the traditional metal settings and bands that have previously been required to create ‘diamond rings’. Theirs will be created by removing material rather than adding – an ambition made possible by the extraordinary scale of the stone which will enable the ring to be completely made of this material.” said auction house Sotheby’s.
“Creating a ring-shaped diamond is no small feat; the diamond block will be faceted with several thousand facets, some of which are as small as several hundred micrometers. The interior ring will be cylindrically cut out for the desired smoothness using a micrometer thick water jet inside which a laser beam is cast. The finished ring will have between 2000-3000 facets which has never been seen before on a single piece.”
The ring, which will be crafted by Diamon Foundry will be sold at the RED auction in Miami on the 5th of December (with a price range of $150-250K) and will be made to the size specifications of the buyer. Pretty unique, no? The ring doesn’t have a gemstone. The ring IS the gemstone!