CLASSIC GRAFF

The beging of the Graff brand was an unimaginable achievement in 1962 , opening his first shop in Hatton Garden. Talking about his life and work, both in his boardroom in Albemarle Street and over two days in his art-filled chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland, I sense that despite his slight build and reserved demeanour, his vision knows no boundaries.

GRAFF book , is one of the design of Graff jewels, and the other documenting is about his life. one of his storeis is about his mother taking him as a 15-year-old to his first job, as an apprentice at Schindler’s workshop in Hatton Garden. “How far can my son go?” asked Mrs Graff, hoping that she’d chosen a trade with decent prospects. “The sky’s the limit,” Mr Schindler prophesied – although, three months later, Schindler let the teenager go, saying he’d never make the grade in the jewellery business.

Today Graff is completely vertically integrated, from the company’s 15 per cent share in Gem Diamonds (which owns 70 per cent of the Letseng diamond mine in Lesotho) through facilities in New York, the wholesale business selling diamonds to the jewellery trade, to the design, creation and crafting of Graff jewellery, all under one roof, in the London global head office. This extends right the way through to the fast-expanding retail empire, with some 55 boutiques and points of sale around the world.

https://www.graffdiamonds.com/collections/bow/

https://howtospendit.ft.com/watches-jewellery/96093-an-audience-with-graff-ceo-laurence-graff

Beside his passion for diamonds, Graff has become one of the world’s leading art collectors, focusing on 20th-century masters, including Picasso, Calder, Fontana, Lichtenstein, and is on the board of several major museums. 

He will continue to chase a precious rarity, scouring the world for the best gems “he spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week”. Before I leave the Gstaad chalet, Graff shows me around his stellar art collection, explaining that in this, as in gemology and business, he is a self-taught, repeatedly refining his knowledge.

https://www.graffdiamonds.com/house/heritage/beginnings/

Graff become known in the middlemen, ensuring the supply of the right quantity and quality of diamonds to feed the creation of his finished jewellery and grow his retail business. This has brought benefits to the consumer, not only in pricing, but also in transparency, traceability and consistency of quality, “All our diamonds are cut in the Graff way,”

He explains. “We’ve taken the most classic, established cuts and refined them with perfect proportions to get the utmost from each stone. We prefer to cut a little more, losing weight if necessary, to attain that perfection.”

https://howtospendit.ft.com/watches-jewellery/96093-an-audience-with-graff-ceo-laurence-graff

At age 17, he started his own business, growing it organically, “buying bigger and better” every time, and seizing his opportunities What’s most deeply ingrained in him is the busy Hessel Street market, off Commercial Road. 

Early on, Graff realized that direct access to diamonds was crucial to the growth of his business. At the time, this access was only for available to “sightholders”, direct clients of the De Beers Group (the mining, marketing and distribution company) who are regularly allocated a box of rough diamonds straight from the mines. But against the odds so Graff acquired a controlling stake in the South African Diamond Corporation (Safdico) in 1998, becoming one of De Beers’s biggest sightholders. Graff explains, “If you want to be successful with diamonds, you have to get as close to them as possible.         

With each visit to a palace or to a private yacht, he was aware of how far he’d come. ‘For an East End boy, to dine with kings and princes was quite something,’ 

He reflects. The Graff brand began to enjoy global success. The company was careful to build up its international stores judiciously; the first store outside the UK opened in 2000 at Hotel de Paris in Monaco, and there are now over 50 stores all around the world.

https://www.graffdiamonds.com/house/heritage/beginnings/