Bespoke Gemstones
Gemstone Mastery: From Ideal Cut Diamonds to Rare Baguette Settings
At Backes & Strauss, our master polishers have perfected the Ideal cut, precisely shaping a diamond’s 58 facets to maximise its beauty, fire and brilliance while revealing the distinctive hearts-and-arrows motif.
Every Backes & Strauss timepiece features at least one Ideal Cut diamond set into its crown, a Brand signature. Baguette-cut diamonds often distinguish our exceptional creations, while a variety of other diamond cuts enhance our ladies’ watches.
Only diamonds of exceptional quality are selected, typically graded F Colour and better and VVS (Very Very Slight Inclusion) and better. Each Masterpiece is accompanied by a dedicated presentation booklet detailing the clarity, colour, cut and carat weight of its diamonds. Where particularly important or exceptional diamonds are used, the relevant GIA or HRD grading reports are also included.
Backes & Strauss masters baguette-cut diamonds set within invisible settings, hand-selected, polished and placed edge-to-edge by master craftsmen, leaving no visible metal. The Berkeley Prince 43mm and Piccadilly 45 King Tourbillon both beautifully exemplify this technique: 264 and 48 bespoke baguettes, respectively, spanning cases and dials in pure, uninterrupted brilliance.
Baguette Cut Diamonds
Backes & Strauss jewellery timepieces showcase an exceptional variety of fancy-cut diamonds, including baguette, cushion, marquise, oval, pear, heart, princess, Asscher and emerald cuts. Each diamond is carefully selected and precisely set to complement the design. Bespoke cuts may be created for exceptional pieces, reflecting the Brand’s mastery with precision and artistry.
Special diamond cuts
Colourful Gemstones
Backes & Strauss celebrates the beauty of colour through a palette of gemstones, from vivid green emeralds, rich red rubies and blue sapphires to blue and purple topaz, warm orange citrine and rhodolite garnet and delicate green peridot. The Piccadilly Princess Royal Colours brings together diamonds in 66 unique hues; the Ballerina Colour Cascade creates a spectacular display of colour and light.
The Empress Rose is a bespoke jewellery timepiece whose bracelet brings together three diamond cuts. 24 round brilliant-cut diamonds, 52 pear-shaped diamonds, and 22 modified square emerald-cut diamonds are framed by 508 round brilliant Ideal Cut diamonds for a total of 606 diamonds weighing 30.02 cts. Together, the diamonds form an exquisite floral composition in pure light.
Bejewelled Bracelets
Ideal Cut Diamonds
Every round diamond selected by Backes & Strauss is cut to ideal proportions, maximising its fire and brilliance. The Royal Jester features the largest single diamond set into a Backes & Strauss timepiece: a 1.01-carat, D-colour, Internally Flawless round brilliant diamond, independently graded by the GIA and positioned at the heart of the case, a striking focal point.
Rare Diamonds
Backes & Strauss selects the world’s rarest and most remarkable diamonds, from natural vivid yellow diamonds recovered from Namibia’s marine deposits to exquisite fancy pink diamonds and coveted stones from Australia’s now-closed Argyle mine. Each diamond is individually chosen for its exceptional colour and brilliance before being set into one of the Brand’s jewellery timepieces.