Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Spend

Sunday Mirror, Jan 4, 1998 by Diane Boliver

Diamonds are still a girl's best friend...but the difference now is that women are buying the sparklers themselves.

Football star David Beckham might have stuck to tradition by buying his fiancee Posh Spice a pounds 13,000 diamond- encrusted crucifix for Christmas, yet a lot of girls have become fed up with waiting.

The world's biggest diamond firm, De Beers, say the number of women buying diamonds for themselves has more than doubled in three years.

Around 11 per cent of all sales are now to girls dipping into their own bank accounts.

"Much of the growth is down to supermodels like Cindy Crawford and Tyra Banks, who are often seen in diamond solitaire necklaces," says De Beers' spokeswoman Susan Farmer.

"Diamond crosses are also a big favourite after supermodel Gail Elliot's wedding, when her supermodel bridesmaids all wore them."

Kate Moss was said to have treated herself to a pounds 100,000 solitaire diamond necklace in October. And women off the catwalk are going for quality, rather than quantity.

"Jewellery is much more understated than in the 1980s," says Farmer, who points out that the sale of solitaire diamond jewellery in Britain has soared by 33 per cent in the last year.

Britain's biggest High Street jeweller the Signet group, which owns H. Samuel and Ernest Jones, agree that buyers are definitely going for classic items. The price of rings at H. Samuel ranges from pounds 49 to pounds 1,499, but how can you tell the difference?

A diamond's value is based on what experts call the four Cs - cut, clarity, carat and colour.

So the more it weighs and sparkles the better.