Thursday March 28th, 2024
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Diamonds Are Select's Best Friend

Diamond design house Select Jewelry has been around for almost a century, making us certain diamonds never grow old. We sat down to chat with them about their jewellery and gemstone secrets passed on through generations.

Staff Writer

Diamonds Are Select's Best Friend
Diamonds might be a girl's best friend but, let's face it, diamonds are our imaginary best friends more than anything. But, that's fine; even Lorde keeps cutting her teeth on wedding rings - in the movies - and has never seen a diamond in the flesh, so we're in good company. It's only cliché and convenient for us to picture ourselves at a 50s club, spinning around on a dining table as showers of sparkling diamonds abound. For someone like Louis Youssef, whose father founded Select Jewelry, and his two sons who currently help him manage it, our fantasies are nothing short of a glittering reality.
 
Select Jewelry has been gracing the streets of Cairo with its vitrines full of super sparkly designs since their inception in 1939, dominating the diamond industry for 75 years, essentially leaving us and our grandmothers more love-struck and in awe every time we pass them by. Crafting consistent high quality pieces with various types of precious stones from diamonds to rubies, Select Jewelry are experts on producing custom-made superior jewellery for Egypt's elite. The three diamond connoisseurs took a break from their gem-studded daily life to chat with us about the classy creations they've been crafting for generations.

"Our designs are usually Italian, yet we have designers all the way from Hong Kong, and some are even Egyptian," they explain. When we asked them about a new collection, their immediate reaction was that they "always have a new collection every month - every week for that matter. New special material is coming in for Christmastime, and we'll definitely be going along a colourful theme with rose, white, and gold jewellery to suit the Christmassy feel."
 
Hearing a bit about the family's upbringing and background, we could only assume that they used diamonds for mirrors at home, so ingrained are they all in the industry. "My brother and I both graduated from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) with a Diamond Grading degree," Yunan Louis Youssef, one of the two brothers told us, "and my whole family has been in the diamond business before I was even born." At this point we're sitting here wondering what their diamond-studded tissue paper would look like. Not that they actually have diamond-studded tissue paper but we know that if we were the ones with degree in Diamond Grading, that's what we'd have in our homes... We're pretty sure that if you have a degree in diamonds, you're definitely the man for the job.
 
After the success of their grandfather's main store in Downtown Cairo, Louis Youssef and his two sons started their own different rendition of Select Jewelry in Heliopolis' classy Korba neighbourhood. However, the quality of their classy creations remains at the highest level as their excellence in this trade has been passed down for generations. 

Check them out on Facebook here, and on Instagram here

Photo shoot by MO4 Network's MO4 Productions.
Styling: Gehad Abdalla
Photography: Lobna Derbala 
Producer: Leena Elmasry 
Assistant producer: Reem Amin 
Fashion coordinator: Yasmine Abdel Bary 
Makeup: Merna Kauzman