Heritage
History & Heritage
Backes & Strauss: the oldest diamond dealers in the world
As Masters of diamonds since 1789, Backes & Strauss the world's oldest diamond company launched an exclusive luxury watch brand, creating masterpieces in the world famous workshops of Franck Muller Watchland, Switzerland. Marriage with such an expert watchmaker produces the most elegant timepieces featuring diamonds of the finest quality custom cut into unique shapes, polished and then hand set to perfection.
Reflecting Backes & Strauss' London provenance, there are three unique watch collections: The Berkeley, The Piccadilly and The Regent. Crafted in either 18 carat white or rose gold and elegantly set with diamonds, these watches are inspired by London's Regency architecture, notably the classical proportions and bold symmetry of John Nash's work for the Prince Regent in 1811 and the 18th century Palladian master and landscape architect William Kent.
Drawing on our history & heritage with the outstanding skill of our craftsmen and master polishers, Backes & Strauss are able to offer endless possibilities in creating the ultimate diamond watch.
Meeting of Masters
There are many satisfying parallels between the master diamond cutter and the master watch maker, Backes & Strauss and The Franck Muller Group. Both are supreme craftsmen. Both share the same mathematical precision, the same combination of art and science, the same almost elemental understanding: one works with light, the other with time.
These parallels are apparent in our watches. On the outside, the face and case evoke the geometric symmetry of the ideal cut. On the inside, the handcrafted movements are often described as jewel-like. The simile is perfect. Not only do our movements have a jewel's brilliance and complex perfection, but the intricate workings and the interplay of one piece on the next are suggestive of the way light moves within our diamonds.
It is this meeting of masters of diamonds and watch making, this elemental genius for light and time that makes a Backes & Strauss watch unique. It is a masterpiece inside and out.
Masters of Diamonds
With over two hundred years of experience, Backes & Strauss know diamonds better than anyone else having perfected the art of “ideal cut". Such a cut shapes a diamond for perfect symmetry and proportions, where all the light that enters the stone refracts internally from 57 precisely placed facets and disperses through the top of the diamond, resulting in maximum fire and brilliance. This is why all the diamonds that are hand set on a Backes & Strauss timepiece are ideal cut.
Backes & Strauss are known for quality and craftsmanship and as their long heritage demands only the best diamonds are used. The clean clarity of the diamonds used here are the extremely rare Flawless / V V S + with the near perfect colour collection F+.
Perfect Symmetry
The most beautiful objects in art and nature are often symmetrical, and so it is with diamonds.
Hearts and Arrows
The proof of Backes & Strauss’s expertise in diamond cutting is the Hearts and Arrows pattern shown by each Backes & Strauss diamond when viewed with a special instrument called ‘Hearts and Arrows viewer’. The pattern is a series of eight arrowheads when viewed from above the crown with one eye and eight heart shapes when viewed from below the pavilion. The Hearts & Arrows viewer (included in each Backes & Strauss watch box) is merciless when it comes to detecting any deviation from perfection.
Hearts and Arrows diamonds are the ultimate, most magnificent and brilliant Ideal Cut diamonds. The team of expert diamond cutters and polishers at Backes & Strauss takes extensive care to manually polish each diamond to perfection, a skill they have refined in over 200 years of the company existence. Each natural diamond is planned, cut and polished in an effort that requires hundreds of hours of meticulous work. Almost 50% of the rough diamond is lost in the achievement of the perfectly polished symmetrical Backes & Strauss diamond.
Masters of Diamonds
With over two hundred years of experience, Backes & Strauss know diamonds better than anyone else having perfected the art of “ideal cut". Such a cut shapes a diamond for perfect symmetry and proportions, where all the light that enters the stone refracts internally from 57 precisely placed facets and disperses through the top of the diamond, resulting in maximum fire and brilliance. This is why all the hand set diamonds in a Backes & Strauss timepiece are ideal cut.
The making of a Masterpiece
There sumptuous Berkeley Imperial model for example has a total of 141 diamonds totaling 14.40 carats. It took two and a half years to collect and skillfully match the 48 rare and difficult Natural Fancy Lime Colour diamonds weighing 6.89 carats, which were then custom cut and polished with a further 48 equally fashioned white diamonds weighing 7.17 carats, all ready to be hand set.
Then the Backes & Strauss signature “Jewel in the Crown” weighing 0.34 carats is one more rare natural fancy lime, a Berkeley Imperial bespoke cut.
The Jewel in the Crown
Every watch has at least one diamond, set into the crown by hand; it is the Backes & Strauss signature “The Jewel in the Crown” which is designed to look like the pavilion of a diamond. The pavilion is the lower portion of the diamond, below the girdle, sometimes referred to as the base.
Perfection is in the detail
Backes & Strauss developed a unique dial design, as Masters of Diamonds the dial is therefore diamond stamped. Each numeral and index is polished and set by hand, as are the diamonds on each Backes & Strauss timepiece. The pyramids which are placed on the dial's inner circle mark the seconds (five by five). They are a pyramid shape in homage to a polished diamond. Perfect reasons for perfected details.