Louis Vuitton Hosted A Glittering Dinner in Paris to Celebrate its Latest Acquisition—the World’s Second-Largest Diamond

Couture Week is not just about the clothes, it’s also a time for high jewelry maisons from Paris’s Place Vendôme to unveil their newest and most precious treasures.

In a great tour de force, yesterday evening, Louis Vuitton presented its latest acquisition: The second biggest diamond ever discovered (the first one belonging to the British Royal Family). It’s a spectacular 1758 carat diamond named Sewelô, which was discovered last April in the Karowe mine in Botswana, Africa. At present, the stone is uncut and it’s still enveloped in a thin black layer of carbon. The size of a tennis ball and weighing 352 grams, the diamond in the rough was bought earlier this January by Louis Vuitton.

The presentation was followed by a private cocktail and dinner at Louis Vuitton’s Place Vendôme flagship store, in the presence of nearly 100 top celebrities, editors, and clients. After taking the elevator up to the private salons of the former hôtel particulier, recently redesigned by architect Peter Marino, attendees were greeted by a hologram of the diamond. The room was laid with black carpet and candle lights and the floor-to-ceiling windows face the iconic Vendôme column.

In another room, placed as the centerpiece of a dark circular installation, the prized diamond sat in a Louis Vuitton jewelry box through a beam of light, revealing its exceptional radiance. There, the energy of the crystal was palpable. Outside, sparkling one-of-a-kind bespoke dresses made for the brand s muses—actresses Emma Stone, Alicia Vikander and Isabelle Huppert—echoed the beauty of the rock.

“Right now, it’s like a blank canvas, everything is possible,” commented Louis Vuitton’s chairman and CEO Michael Burke about the soon-to-be transformed gem, which will be crafted into a jewel-piece in a bespoke commission. “Typically, there’s a finished, polished, cut, and set diamond that gets shown to a limited number of potential clients and they either fall in love or don’t fall in love, but the creative aspect is not part of the relationship between the client and the house. Here, we want that relationship to go as far upstream as possible,” he explained.

Vikander, who arrived on the arm of husband and actor Michael Fassbender, looked ravishingly in a black and white design from Nicolas Ghesquière s spring 2020 collection for Louis Vuitton. "Honestly I ve never seen anything like it! What I love the most is the mystery behind the fact that they re honoring this Earth’s creation that’s two billion-years-old and the fact that they haven t opened it yet. I think that the illusion and the idea of what might be inside are much worthy of a celebration,” commented the Oscar winner actress in awe.

Starting with Champagne and cocktails, guests included Giovanna Battaglia Englebert, Lauren Santo Domingo, Marie-Amélie Sauvé, Sofia Sanchez de Betak, Carine Roitfeld with her son Vladimir, Caroline Daur, Peter Marino, Craig McDean, Alex Israel, and Vogue’s Hamish Bowles, along with Louis Vuitton’s jewelry and watches artistic director, Francesca Amfitheatrof. After cheerfully toasting to the diamond, everyone gathered one floor down to enjoy a special menu of raw scallops with black truffle, followed by sole filet topped with caviar butter, and a saffron passion fruit dessert served with vanilla mousse.