French brand Fred, a unit of luxury group LVMH, has introduced a limited-edition collection featuring a mixture of natural and synthetic diamonds.
The Parisian house has brought out just four jewelry pieces as part of the new line, each one containing a 0.50-carat, blue lab-grown diamond in the brand’s proprietary Fred Hero Cut, it said Tuesday. It has also unveiled a loose, 8.88-carat synthetic diamond with the same color and cut.
All five stones, named Fred Audacious Blue, are fancy-vivid greenish-blue, have VS clarity or higher, and carry grading reports from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA). The jewelry collection is called Haute Joaillerie Force 10 Duality, reflecting the combination of man-made stones with white mined diamonds.
The inspiration for the collection was Fred Samuel, the company’s founder, who died in 2006 but whose “spirit of daring” still has an impact on the brand, it said. The 8.88-carat size of the single stone pays homage to Samuel’s life: He was born in the eighth month of 1908 and opened his first store in the 8th arrondissement of Paris.
“Following in the footsteps of Fred Samuel and looking toward the future, the maison is adding a bold new innovation to its legacy,” the company said. By doing so, it is giving blue synthetic diamonds a “novel place in the world of [Fred’s] high jewelry.”
Last year, LVMH Luxury Ventures invested in Israel-based lab-grown producer Lusix.
Main image: One of the lab-grown diamonds from the Fred Audacious Blue collection. (Fred)
