Luxury jewellers Tiffany & Co. faced a heap of backlash over a recent campaign that featured Beyonce Knowles-wearing a precious stone some may argue is a ‘colonial’ diamond.
Beyonce becomes first black woman to wear Tiffany Diamond
According to the US jewellers, only three women, before Mrs Knowles-Carter, have worn one of the world’s finest yellow diamonds that was first discovered in 1877, in South Africa’s Kimberley diamond mines.
The 287.42-carat rough stone was sold to founder Charles Lewis Tiffany for $18 000 a year later. The first woman to wear the Tiffany Diamond was Mrs. E. Sheldon Whitehouse in 1957. Four years later, the stone was reset in a Ribbon Rosette necklace designed by Jean Schlumberger and worn by British actress Audrey Hepburn.
Pop star Lady Gaga became the third woman in history to wear the stone at the 2019 Academy Awards.
Not only has Beyonce been added to this prestigious list but the 39-year-old becomes the first black woman to don the Tiffany Diamond.
Tiffany & Co. gets backlash over ‘blood’ diamond
While fans of the megastar melted over the regal energy she projected from the Tiffany campaign photos that hit social media, South Africans were far from celebratory.
The Tiffany Diamond has been a subject of controversy in Africa for the longest time. The Kimberley diamond rush of the 1800s was frothed with colonial disparities. Black miners, as depicted in J.D Omer-Cooper’s History of Southern Africa, were grossly underpaid and worked in horrendous conditions for jewellers like Charles Lewis Tiffany.
This is the hereditary trauma that was felt by South Africans who came across the diamond that was flaunted on their favourite songstress’ chest.
Here are some of the reactions we picked out online:
Tiffany’s put Beyoncé in a diamond —“discovered” in a colonial mine in Kimberly in 1877—that no black woman has ever worn before in an ad with a never-ever-before-seen Basquiat and then pledged $2 million in scholarships & internships to HBCUs
— Zoé (@ztsamudzi) August 23, 2021
While Beyoncé is the first black person to wear the Tiffany Yellow Diamond, seeing as it was mined here in Kimberly in the 1800s, I'm pretty sure hers are not the first black hands to touch it.
— Sisenjeni ♂️ (@MvelaseP) August 23, 2021
Quoted from a spokesman for the Kimberley mines, from which this blood diamond was excavated:
— Brother Q (FKA Andray Domise) (@andraydomise) August 24, 2021
"If niggers can dig for themselves and sell diamonds unquestioned, the employment of native labour becomes practically useless" pic.twitter.com/7nPLA84CCc