Backes Strauss: Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend

Backes & Strauss: a British brand steeped in history with its watches entirely crafted in the Geneva workshops of Franck Muller Watchland, a house that still produces all its components in-house. Founded in 1789, Backes & Strauss is the oldest diamond company in the world with examples of its jewellery shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Berkeley Collection is inspired by one of the most charming of London's great squares - a graceful garden in the heart of elegant, bustling Mayfair. Originally laid out in the 18th century by Palladian master and landscape architect William Kent, Berkeley Square has particular resonance for Backes and Strauss; its great plain trees, among the oldest in London, were planted in 1789, the year the company started trading.

All Backes & Strauss diamonds are sorted into divisions of 0.025mm - less than a quarter of the width of a human hair. Up to 55% of the uncut stone is sacrificed to achieve such perfection, with Backes & Strauss taking up to ten times longer in the process than less ambitious cutters. According to the GIA (Gemological Institute of America), less than 3% of all diamonds are cut to these ideal proportions.

Unique among watchmakers, Backes & Strauss combines a genius for horology with a passion for diamonds. For Backes & Strauss diamonds are not mere added sparkle, they are fundamental to the watch design. Every Backes & Strauss diamond is selected, cut and polished to perfection, then hand set in a watch expressly designed to maximise its fire.

Backes & Strauss does not simply encrust a standard watch with diamonds. With more than 200 years' experience of diamonds and jewellery, its watches are designed to show off the diamonds. The sweeping curves of the case are carefully calculated to allow the optimum light to reach the stones. Mounted by hand in an invisible setting, each diamond is displayed to its best advantage from every angle.

The cutting and selling of diamonds takes place in only a handful of centres throughout the world, and Backes & Strauss has a presence in all of them. For watches, there is only one true centre: Switzerland. All watch movements are manufactured exclusively by Franck Muller Watchland, a house renowned for its innovation and breathtaking technical brilliance. One of Switzerland's few remaining manufactures, Franck Muller Watchland, crafts and assembles every part of each Backes & Strauss watch in its own workshops in Geneva, right down to the tiniest cog, screw and spring.