Romancing the stone

Valerie Messika, the creator of luxury French jewellery brand Messika Diamantaire, embodies her designs: effervescent, luminescent and transcendent

The daughter of a diamond dealer, Valérie Messika is every bit as radiant as the precious stones that have become the bread and butter of her family heritage. Her long chestnut brown hair catches the sunlight and transforms into tiny shafts of gold.

With luminescent blue eyes and a warm smile, Messika is personable. On a crisp and sunny winter's day in Paris the jewellery designer is sensibly dressed in Diesel jeans and a cosy cream jumper.

Gorgeous jewels
"My father has been a diamond dealer for about 25 years. I started working with him eight years ago but I didn't like it at all," said Messika, gazing out of the window and playing with the sleeves of her jumper.

"With diamond dealing, there is no creativity, you simply buy and sell. It's very technical actually. At the beginning I studied a bit about the stones: the different degrees of clarity and colour. After a while I decided to create my own world and interpretations with the gorgeous jewels," she explained.

"It was just a joke at first," said Messika stating that she decided to create her own collection by chance.

"I took some diamonds and made a few pieces of jewellery for myself and people loved it. And personally, I loved creating the jewellery. I thought it was really interesting, so I decided to launch my own brand making my debut at the Basel Show in Switzerland," she said.

The Basel Show was a huge success for the debutant, she received raved reviews and the vivacious Parisian hasn't looked back since.

Bolder designs
Messika's collections vary from medium to high price points making her beautiful pieces more accessible and as a luxury jeweller she's simultaneously carving a special niche for herself.

With every new collection and as she grows in confidence the 31-year-old is creating bolder designs with increasingly bigger diamonds.

Messika counts the women of Dubai as some of her biggest clients. With the continuous flux of nationals travelling to Europe on holiday every year, the young designer records great sales with the UAE jetsetters with her high-end jewellery collections which are unfortunately currently not available in Dubai.

"My aspiration for Messika Diamantaire is to create jewellery that's more modern, more feminine and very easy to wear," said the brunette.

"I find a lot of inspiration from ancient civilisations. This year I'm planning to launch an ethnic-inspired jewellery collection. I find it fascinating to go into a certain period or civilisation and learn about different cultures and lifestyles," she said.

"I don't want to be pretentious and tell you that I came up with the ideas all by myself. I believe that everything has already been created, my job is just to reinterpret what already exists to design beautiful pieces of jewellery," said Messika honestly.

Avid traveller
The minute I stepped into the brand's head office, it was obvious that Messika is an avid traveller.

On the floor in the reception room was an ethnic African sculpture, behind the receptionist was a modern art collage and in her showroom were more paintings and collages with images of Marilyn Monroe and other popular culture icons.

"I love travelling. I enjoy collecting objects from different countries and studying their different shapes and forms," Messika said.

The designer is a frequent traveller to the Far East, particularly Bali, Thailand and Vietnam. For her next adventure Messika's planning a visit to South Africa.

Messika hopes one day to branch out into men's jewellery but for now she's focussed on developing as a designer and growing her brand. For the near future she plans to have some of her high-end jewellery ranges available for her growing fan-base in Dubai.

"I have visited Dubai and found it very amazing, like Disneyland but for adults. Anything is possible there," Messika smiled, the French designer was mesmerised by how massive all the new buildings were.

Priceless
Messika also stated that her biggest accomplishment to date has been seeing women in the street wearing her jewellery. To her this simply means that her customers have recognised something in her designs that represents who they are - and that's priceless.

The fact that Messika formed the brand just four years ago is refreshing. The high-end jewellery market is not an industry where many young creators venture but Messika is clearly finding her feet and continues to create her own unique world of luxury.

She is bold and unabashed about what she can offer in this industry. Messika brings something new to the table and once you've witnessed it for yourself, you too will be a believer.

"I believe my creations are universal and timeless. Shopping is very nice but I hope the women of Dubai will feel a more spiritual connection with my jewellery," Messika concluded.

Go there
Catch Messika Diamantaire at the Basel Show in Switzerland in April 2008.

Messika Diamantaire is stocked in Azal, Emirates Towers Boulevard, Dubai, and in Paris the brand is distributed in a boutique called Dubai on Place Vendome. For more information visit www.messikadiamantaire.com