Jony Ive’s $250,000 ring dazzles with a unibody diamond

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Jony Ive ring 1
A one-piece diamond ring looks spectacular. But it'll sure as heck cost you!
Photo: Sotheby's

Want to show your Apple-loving significant other that you really care about them? If so — and you happen to have $150,000-$250,000 at your disposal — you might want to participate in a new Sotheby’s auction for a diamond ring designed by none other than Sir Jony Ive and BFF Marc Newson.

The one-of-a-kind ring was designed to raise money for (RED), a charity that raises money to fight HIV and AIDS in Africa. Over the years, Apple has raised millions of dollars for the charity — and Ive has had the chance to design one-off objects such as minimalist desks in the process.

About that Jony Ive diamond ring

In its catalog, Sotheby’s notes that:

“Sir Jony Ive, Apple’s Chief Design Officer, and renowned industrial designer Marc Newson — having curated the (RED) auction five years ago — have, this year, designed a unique ring, made exclusively for (RED) by Diamond Foundry. Consistent with their mutual obsession with transforming raw material into objects of value, Ive & Newson’s design is singular, clear and un-compromised by the traditional metal settings and bands that have previously been required to create ‘diamond rings’. Theirs will be created by removing material rather than adding – an ambition made possible by the extraordinary scale of the stone which will enable the ring to be completely made of this material.”

Because this is a Jony Ive ring we’re talking about, it’s no surprise that there’s some dazzling technical prowess on display in the ring’s creation. Like the unibody design of a MacBook, which creates a shell out of a solid piece of aluminum, the diamond ring is cut out of a single diamond block. Some of its facets measure as small as several hundred micrometers.

To do this with the desired smoothness, Ive used a micrometer-thick water jet inside which a laser beam is cast. The finished diamond ring (which won’t be completed until the buyer’s size has been ascertained) will have 2,000 to 3,000 facets. This number has reportedly never been seen before on a single diamond piece.

Jony Ive and Marc Newson’s design team-ups

Ive and Newson have worked together for years now. Newson actually joined Ive’s design team at Apple back in 2014. However, since then, he has taken plenty of time away from Apple to do jobs for other clients. Back in late 2016, Ive and Newson teamed up to design the Christmas tree at London’s famous Claridge’s hotel.

The pair’s diamond ring will go up for auction on December 5.

Source: Sotheby’s

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