Harry Winston: Setting the stage for legendary gems

The year was 1935. A 39-year-old diamond trader named Harry had just spent several intense weeks negotiating with De Beers to purchase a 726-carat rough- cut diamond that was unearthed in Pretoria, South Africa. Persuading De Beers, which monopolized 95 percent of the world’s diamond supply at the time, proved to be difficult. Usually, rare gemological finds like these were purchased by royalty, who were privileged with the first right of refusal. But here was this relative unknown, calling the De Beers Central Selling Organization in London from New York, saying that he wanted to buy it. “Harry who?” they asked.

Finally, the negotiations came to a halt and the price was settled at a hefty $750,000. To date, it was one of the world’s largest rough diamonds ever discovered, and was named after its South African discoverer, Jacobus Jonker. Soon after, the deal made the buyer famous worldwide and De Beers would come to know him as Harry Winston, a force in the diamond industry who, like the diamonds he purchased, was a rare talent that surfaced once every century. Upon his death at 82 years old in 1978, H. F. Oppenheimer, the De Beers chairman at the time, said, “Harry Winston’s death is an incalculable loss to the diamond industry. His position in it will not be easily filled.”

When he was alive, Harry Winston lived for precious diamonds and rare gems. “Jewels are more than my love and my life; they are an insatiable obsession,” he once said. Over the course of his career, it is estimated that a third of the world’s most famous diamonds and gemstones have passed through his hands, including the Jonker and Hope diamonds, along with the Indore Pears, the Catherine the Great sapphire, the Idol’s Eye and the Star of the East. But it wasn’t the history or the value of these rocks that fascinated Harry — he just loved to look at them and hold them in his hands. Like every success story, Harry had a particular legend, a foretelling of his greatness in the diamond industry: when he was just 12 years old, Harry passed by a local pawnshop that advertised a tray of costume jewelry. “25 cents—Take Your Pick,” the sign said. He went in and spotted a a genuine emerald that the owner mistook to be a piece of glass junk. He bought it for a quarter, as advertised, and sold it two days later for $800. As early as then, Harry was aware that he had been born with a rare gift.

While working at the family business in LA, Harry jumped at every opportunity to clean a new stone, taking the chance to study and memorize their unique hues, facets and clarity. Fifty years later, when his name had become synonymous with diamonds and immortalized in a song performed by Marilyn Monroe, he found himself doing the exact same thing, playing with his diamonds, delicately rolling them between his fingers before finally “putting them to bed” by wrapping them up and putting them away in his desk. As someone who loved diamonds so much, it was a shame that he couldn’t wear the rare stones he purchased that were set in rings and necklaces, so he would often settle for walking around with a multimillion-dollar diamond in his pocket.

Harry’s expertise in diamonds wasn’t just limited to estimating the weight and value of mounted gemstones with great accuracy — he also happened to have a talent for bringing out the beauty of a particular jewel by placing it in the right setting. Finding the settings of the estate pieces he purchased early in his career to be too bulky, Harry pioneered the technique of setting them in a minimal amount of platinum wire. Disappearing beneath the diamonds’ brilliance, the setting would give the illusion of the stones floating against the wearer. In 1962, Harry flew in Ambaji Shinde from Bombay, the jewelry designer whom he would later refer to as the “jewel behind his jewels.” It was under Amabji’s artistic eye that the brand’s designs soared to new heights, having taken inspiration from own heritage, nature and the energy of New York City, where the Harry Winston headquarters were based. 

Even though he started out in the industry as a diamond trader at the New York Diamond Exchange, it was said that the sale of a favorite piece of his could send him into mourning for weeks. Like a parent, he was there for each step of a diamond’s development starting with the purchase, then moving on to cutting, polishing and finally, setting the piece. The Jonker diamond, the rock that first brought him worldwide attention, was split into 12 smaller diamonds. He kept the largest one, the Jonker 1, which weighed 123.35 carats, for himself and refused to sell it for 14 years. Finally, in 1951, it was sold to King Farouk of Egypt.

Though he was loath to part with his gems, especially when he knew he wouldn’t see them again after a sale, Harry was more than willing to loan then. Unlike recluse art collectors who purchase the world’s rarest art pieces, only to keep them hidden from the public, Harry wanted nothing more than to share his passion with the rest of the world. Following his historic purchase of the Jonker diamond, he incited public curiosity by choosing to ship via US mail for just 64 cents, a publicity stunt that he would replicate with other famous purchases, like the Hope Diamond. The day it arrived in the US, it was sent straight to the American Museum of Natural History where it was displayed for a few days before embarking on a coast to coast tour across America.

In 1958, he donated the famed Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. as a gift to the American public. Touted as the crown jewel of Harry’s traveling Court of Jewels exhibition, which went all over North America for five years and raised millions of dollars for charity, the Hope Diamond was joined by other rare and precious gems, like the Spanish Inquisition necklace and the Portugese Diamond. Harry also came to be known as the “Jeweler to the Stars” when he became the first jeweler to loan diamonds for the red carpet. In 1944, actress Jennifer Jones wore Harry Winston for the 16th Academy Awards when she won the Best Actress award. After that, Harry Winston’s jewels were worn by every generation of distinguished actresses — everyone from Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly to Gwyneth Paltrow and Halle Berry — who wanted to look special during one of the most important evenings of their careers.

It’s been 36 years since Harry Winston’s passing and no one has shaken up the world of jewels quite like he did. However, his life-long passion for diamonds continues until this day every time a customer walks into one of his 19 salons worldwide, especially in their flagship salon in 718 Fifth Avenue in New York. As admirers of Harry’s work walk in his salons and take home an exquisite piece, they literally hold his life’s work, his legacy in his hands.

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Harry Winston is located on the G/F Greenbelt 5, Ayala Center, Makati City. For more information, call 0917-5874037.