Yahoo Lifestyle EXCLUSIVE: Adwoa Aboah Stars in De Beers Jewelry Campaign as Company Rebrands, Readies Paris Flagship
LONDON — The De Beers diamond jewelry brand is facing the future with a new name, a fresh focus and a campaign that aims to reflect its multicultural origins.
The company, which launched in 2001 as De Beers Diamond Jewellers, has rebranded as De Beers London, with the tag line “True brilliance comes from within.”
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A new campaign called Portraits of True Brilliance will be released Monday and stars the model and mental health activist Adwoa Aboah. It reflects the brand’s new attitude which is female-focused and proud of its roots in London and southern Africa.
Shot by the British photographer Oliver Hadlee Pearch in a classic London town house, the campaign looks to capture the creativity of its designs which are inspired by the natural world.
In the campaign, Aboah is photographed wearing pieces from the Talisman collection, which is marking its 20th anniversary this year. The collection combines rough and polished diamonds, and challenged convention when it launched in 2005.
She also wears pieces from the Enchanted Lotus collection. The jewelry shapes are inspired by the watery flower, which grows abundantly in the Okavango Delta in Botswana.
De Beers group is part-owned by the country of Botswana, and the company has been helping to protect the local environment there through conservation activities.
The campaign and rebrand mark the culmination of Céline Assimon’s tenure as chief executive officer of the jewelry brand. As reported, she will be leaving the company at the end of February after more than four years, and a search is underway for her successor.
In an interview, Assimon she said it was important to emphasize what makes De Beers jewelry different.
“London has a unique combination of history and tradition with edginess and modernity. It’s a true melting pot of culture and creativity. We are reinforcing our identity as a brand born and raised in London, with roots and soul in the incredible nature of southern Africa,” she said.
“We’ve been working hard behind the scenes,” Assimon said. “Collaborating with my team to research and articulate [De Beers’] distinctive DNA has been a remarkable adventure. The blend of African heritage with a touch of London sophistication resonates deeply.”
Assimon described the lead-up to the campaign as a “journey,” aimed at refining the brand’s identity as a creative, design-driven brand rather than a “diamond provider.”
She said the campaign is important for a variety of reasons, and evidence that De Beers is speaking increasingly to women who are looking for something not-so-traditional and purchasing for themselves across a variety of price points.
Assimon and her team picked Aboah for the campaign because she “perfectly embodies the De Beers woman. She is graceful, sophisticated and committed to the causes she believes in. Most of all, she is absolutely unafraid to be her authentic self. She personifies our belief that true brilliance comes from within,” she said.
Aboah is part-English, part-Ghanaian, and has been working as a model since she was a teenager. She won Model of the Year at the 2017 Fashion Awards in London, and is the founder of Gurls Talk, a platform that provides resources and a space for young women and girls to discuss mental health.
The company chose to focus on the Talisman and Enchanted Lotus collections for a very specific reason. Assimon said those design-driven brands grew in the double digits in 2024.
The sweet spot for Enchanted Lotus sales is between 5,000 pounds and 10,000 pounds, although prices can dip as low as 2,400 pounds for a pendant necklace or pin.
Assimon also said De Beers is seeing “a lot of appetite” for the high jewelry collections that range in price from 30,000 pounds to 200,000 pounds.
She said that woman buying for themselves tend to buy unconventional pieces rather than the classics they might already have, such as tennis bracelets, diamond studs and solitaire rings.
“We’re also seeing women wanting to layer more design pieces with classic ones to express their own creativity,” she said.
She added that in China, the “she-economy” of women buying diamond solitaire rings for themselves — and choosing not wearing them on their wedding finger — has also been fueling growth.
The jeweler is also making a fresh start at retail with a host of stores set to open or undergo refurbishment.
On March 8, De Beers will open a store in Dubai in partnership with Chalhoub group, while its long-awaited Paris flagship at 12 Rue de la Paix is set to open in the fourth quarter.
That store will span nearly 3,800 square feet over two floors and be the first to showcase the new retail concept. De Beers developed it with Pierre-Yves Rochon, who specializes in luxury hotel and restaurant interiors. His clients include Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton and Peninsula.
“It was interesting for us to have a strong luxury and hospitality point of view with this flagship and to deliver an experience, a physical experience,” Assimon said.
“We wanted something that was truly unique and different from what a French maison would propose. We have this anchor to southern Africa, so you’re going to see a lot of organic shapes and touches that recall the Okavango Delta in Botswana. We’ve also been working with natural stone and interesting tweeds. It’s refined, and there’s a London edge, too,” she said.
The concept will be rolled out to other flagships, on London’s Bond Street and on Madison Avenue in Manhattan.
Assimon said the jewelry brand has the full support of De Beers group, and the future is bright despite challenging times for luxury goods, and for De Beers in particular. As reported, Anglo-American plans to spin off De Beers in a bid to unlock value and opportunities both for itself and the diamond mining group.
“The luxury market is still huge, and has delivered so much in the past years,” said Assimon, adding that when sales bounce back, De Beers London will be prepared.
“I think we are at a point now where everything is in place for the business to grow and to scale. We’re ready to capture a bigger piece of the pie. We know there’s growth potential, there’s appetite, there’s a future in luxury jewelry. But you have to be ready and everything has to be making sense — the DNA, the campaign, the store concept, and the leadership team,” she said.
As part of those efforts, Assimon hired Henry Jun Liu as the brand’s chief marketing officer, and a member of the executive committee. Liu joined De Beers from Tiffany & Co. in New York, where he was senior director of global marketing. During his tenure at Tiffany, he staged a number of events and helped to oversee the opening of The Landmark on Fifth Avenue.
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