In the heart of Sydney’s CBD, diamonds are having an haute couture moment.
Lisa Rochfort agrees that her ideal clients would probably have been Marie Antoinette or the Empress Josephine. Somehow, at the helm of Sydney’s 150-year-old jeweller Fairfax & Roberts, she has found a way to combine old-world quality with a contemporary realism. “That’s the challenge,” Rochfort says, surrounded by some of the Chinese antiques she collects. “To evolve the ideas without compromising on quality. It’s the secret to surviving any downturn.”
True, her own aesthetic preferences lean heavily towards the past, but her modern commercial savvy has been vindicated many times over: the risky strategy of devoting a showroom to the flamboyant enamel work of Fabergé, once court jewellers to the Tsars of Russia, has paid off handsomely. Now, Fabergé moves to a new space within the Castlereagh Street premises to make way for a fresh concept: the Fairfax & Roberts Diamond Exchange, a synergy of customisation, beginning with the selection of the perfect gemstone and ending with the creation of a unique piece of jewellery.
Here, every aspect of the process has a couture level of attention. Backes & Strauss, the Antwerp-based diamond dealers established in 1789, was happy to participate. “We’ve been searching for an affiliation like this for a long time, a company with this kind of reputation that is able to handle stones in large volumes so that we can look towards increased markets, initially interstate and later overseas,” Rochfort says, adding that the best stones are usually sourced in Russia rather than Africa. “They are fluid, bright and crisp, like an ice castle, and we are going for flawless, or as close to it as possible, with only very, very slight inclusions and perfect symmetry.” The Diamond Exchange will hold special yearly exhibitions to display rare gems.
Clients may choose to source designs or draw inspiration from the library of leather-bound volumes in the company’s archive, where delicate drawings on vellum document changing styles and tastes in settings and stones. “They also tell us a lot about the heritage of the artisans and the level of skill available at the time,” Rochfort says. “Many who came to work here were migrants who had previously worked for Cartier, Boucheron and other great houses in Europe.” She insists that the workroom – on view to clients like an open-plan kitchen – remains silent to assist concentration.
With her training as an etcher, Rochfort respects craftsmanship. The naked eye can seldom tell the difference between a laser-cut and a hand-cut stone, but it is the romance and the contemplation involved in the latter that make it a one-off, she says. “Connoisseurs appreciate that, even if they can’t see it.”
A loner who follows her own instincts, Rochfort admits to being out of step with her contemporaries. “I never look at what others are doing here, but I have been happy to sit out the bling era. It did not correspond with my vision at all, or with my clientele. It was a moment of mass-produced vulgarity. My philosophy is about restraint.”
Lending pieces to celebrities has never been part of her company’s marketing strategy; in fact, quite the contrary. “When we are approached, we say no. Our clients don’t want to wear something they’ve seen paraded on a catwalk being flashy. They are more individual and discreet than that.”
That clientele expects a level of service usually associated with European traditions. Applying that standard, the Exchange offers a remodelling service as well as the opportunity to exchange and upgrade stones from clients’ existing personal collections. Other rules underscore a commitment to quality that may be invisible, but constitutes an unrivalled pedigree. “We don’t melt metal down and re-use it,” says Rochfort, who knows all the tricks and deceptions of the business. For her, transparency is about integrity, as much as it is about the brilliance of a stone.
Fairfax & Roberts
19 Castlereagh Street, Sydney.
+61 2 9232 8510. WebsiteSource: Qantas The Australian Way April 2009