This year’s Met Gala is getting underway tonight (May 5) in New York and it’s been revealed that designer Lauren Harwell Godfrey has teamed up with Sotheby’s to create a one-of-a-kind brooch for the prestigious event.
The pair have created a brooch which features The Mediterranean Blue Diamond as its centrepiece – a 10.03-carat Fancy Vivid Blue diamond that will feature in Sotheby’s High Jewellery Sale later this month (May 13), in Geneva. The diamond’s value is estimated to be in the region of $20 million.
Speaking about the collaboration, designer Harwell Godfrey said: “When Frank Everett from Sotheby’sasked me to create a piece in honor of this year’s Met Gala, I jumped at the chance. Especially when he told me I’d be working with a 10-carat blue diamond expected to fetch over $20 million at auction.
“This year’s theme, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, celebrates the artistry and rebellion of Black Dandyism — where fashion, formalwear, and jewellery tell bold stories of identity and power.”
The Mediterranean Blue diamond was discovered in 2023 at the Cullinan Mine in South Africa, which is famous for sourcing some of the world’s most famous blue diamonds to date, including the 530-carat Great Star of Africa, the largest faceted colourless diamond that is mounted into the Sovereign’s Sceptre, part of the British Crown Jewels.
The mine also gave rise to other extraordinary blues, such as ‘The Blue Moon of Josephine’ (a 12.03 carat cushion-shaped stone that was auctioned for $48.5 million at Sotheby’s in Geneva in 2015), and ‘The DeBeers Blue’, a 15.10 step-cut blue diamond that sold for $57.5 million at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong in 2022.
Frank Everett, Vice Chairman Sotheby’s Jewellery, Americas, said of the new creation: “From the moment we thought about setting the Mediterranean Blue in a brooch inspired by the Met Gala theme, I knew Lauren was the right choice.
“Her designs are bold and graphic, and her work with coloured stones is exemplary. And what better colored stone to inspire her than this 10.03 carat Vivid Blue Diamond? Harwell Godfrey was the logical and perfect choice.”
The brooch, which you can see below, has been created in 18 carat yellow gold and detailed with black enamel.
In a statement, Harwell Godfrey also explained how the piece is rooted in history linked to this year’s Met Gala theme.
For 2025, the Met Gala’s theme is ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’, inspired by the work of Monica Miller, a leading scholar of contemporary African American and Afro-diasporic literature and culture, and her 2009 work, ‘Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity’.
Explaining the link, Harwell Godfrey added: “I designed the brooch inspired by royal medals, reimagined through an African diasporic lens — sharp geometry, symbolic black onyx, and this once-in-a-lifetime gem at its centre. An heirloom for Black royalty made with an African diamond.”
Announcing the sale of the Mediterranean Blue diamond, Quig Bruning, Sotheby’s Head of Jewelry, Americas & EMEA, added: “The Mediterranean Blue represents one of nature’s rarest gems. Any vivid blue diamond is a discovery worth celebrating, but one as entrancing as this, particularly being over 10 carats, is a newsworthy event.
“The Mediterranean Blue’s remarkable size, charming cushion-cut, and ocean-blue color places it in the rarefied company of some of the most important blue diamonds to come to market in recent years.”
According to the International Gemological Institute (IGI), only one in 10,000 natural, gem-quality diamonds is ‘fancy coloured’. Within that narrow margin, some colours are rarer than others – with blue being one of the hardest to find. Only about 0.3% of diamonds are thought to have a colour that the IGI considers to be ‘predominately blue’, and vanishingly fewer of these weigh 10 carats or more, making The Mediterranean Blue a sort of unicorn amongst its own species.
As to what actually makes a diamond blue, scientists believe that the presence of the element boron within the diamond’s structure absorbs yellow wavelengths of light, meaning that the light reflected out from the stone appears more blue.
The most recent high profile blue diamonds to come to auction appeared back in 2023, when the 11.16 carat Bulgari Laguna Blu was auctioned by Sotheby’s that summer (having first been showcased by Priyanka Chopra at the Met Gala). It sold for $25 million after a ferocious bidding war that lasted just four minutes. This was followed a few months later by the Bleu Royale, a 17.61 carat pear-shaped blue which was sold by Christie’s for $44 million in just seven minutes, making it one of the year’s most expensive jewels.
In other Met Gala news, A$AP Rocky was spotted wearing some standout vintage pieces from New York-city based fine jeweller, Briony Raymond, while actor Colman Domingo arrived wearing Boucheron.
You can check out all the top looks from 2024 here and see what our predictions for the top looks of the night are here. We’ve also rounded up who we’re most looking forward to seeing at the event here.
Check back on staging.somethingaboutrocks.com/ for more Met Gala Updates through the evening
