Graff: Fragrances Clothed in the Brilliance of Diamonds

グラフの世界観と代表製品「Lesedi La Rona I 100ml」を表現したブランドイメージ

“The finest diamonds are astonishingly rare. These miracles of nature have inspired a lifelong passion to create the most magnificent jewels in the world.”
— Laurence Graff, OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire)

Basic Information

Graff, pronounced “graf” in English, takes its name from the surname of its founder, Laurence Graff.

The Founder and the Origins of the Brand

A Boy Born in London’s East End

Laurence Graff was born on June 13, 1938, in Stepney, in London’s East End. His father, Harry Graff, was of Russian Jewish descent, and his mother, Rebecca Segal, was of Romanian Jewish descent. The family had fled the persecution of Jews, or pogroms, in Imperial Russia and eventually reached London. Laurence has a younger brother, Raymond, born in 1947.

Laurence spent his early childhood in wartime London, attending St George’s School in Shadwell and helping in his mother’s sweet shop. Growing up in the Jewish community around nearby Hessel Street Market, he is said to have developed the beginnings of his business sense by learning everyday trade firsthand.

His grandmother, Katie Graff, deserves particular mention. Regarded as the “brains of the family,” she was relied upon by the wider community. A devout Jewish woman, she exercised her intelligence and resourcefulness at a time when women’s emancipation was beginning to dawn. The entrepreneurial spirit that Laurence later said he inherited from his family cannot be separated from his respect for this grandmother.

An Apprenticeship in Hatton Garden, and a First Setback

According to his own recollection, Laurence found his first job at fifteen in Hatton Garden, the renowned jewelry district in central London. He became an apprentice at the workshop of a jeweler named Schindler.

“At fifteen, I entered Schindler’s workshop in Hatton Garden as an apprentice and studied the craft at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. After three months, my employer told me, ‘You have no promise, no future in the jewelry industry.’ I did not give up. Instead, I went forward with even greater determination.”
— Laurence Graff

His days were filled with errands and floor polishing, but being dismissed after just three months as having “no promise” ignited his fighting spirit rather than defeating him. Laurence quickly moved to another jeweler and continued developing his skills while studying at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. Later, he faced another difficulty when the workshop where he worked went bankrupt, but he did not abandon his chosen path.

Thirty-Three Diamonds and a First Success

At eighteen, Laurence set up a workshop with an experienced jeweler and began a business repairing Victorian-style jewelry. An anecdote from this period has become indispensable to accounts of his business acumen.

When he met a diamond dealer and managed to negotiate a deal to receive thirty-three small diamonds in advance for £60, Laurence’s next move was anything but ordinary.

“Instead of making thirty-three rings, I set them all in a single ring, creating an elegant piece with the brilliance of a large diamond. I sold it to a jeweler in the north of England. I had barely returned to London when he called to say that it had sold and he wanted another.”
— Laurence Graff

His aesthetic of concentrating many elements into a single radiance was thus already present in his early commercial ventures. He went on to make cluster rings by adding layers of six and then twelve stones, expanding his creative range to combinations with colored gems such as emeralds, rubies, and sapphires.

The Birth of Graff Diamonds and International Expansion

In 1960, at twenty-two, Laurence founded Graff Diamonds. Two years later, in 1962, he opened two directly operated boutiques in London, an unusual move in a jewelry industry still centered on wholesalers and workshops.

In 1966, a diamond ribbon bracelet he commissioned from jewelry designer Robert Thomas won the top prize at the De Beers Diamond International Awards, bringing the Graff name to wider attention within the industry.

Around 1967, at twenty-nine, Laurence decided to build an international clientele and began traveling the world to sell jewelry he carried himself.

“For someone from the East End to sit down at a table with kings and princes was quite something.”
— Laurence Graff

During a visit to Singapore, he happened to meet an acquaintance who had once worked in England and was preparing to open a jewelry department at Robinsons department store. He promised, “Give me seven days. I’ll go back to London and bring the merchandise,” and made the exhibition a success. The episode symbolizes his bold entrepreneurial spirit. From around 1974, he also focused on winning wealthy clients in the Middle East, while Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei became a lifelong customer and friend.

The first boutique outside the United Kingdom opened in 2000, at the Hôtel de Paris in Monaco. According to an announcement by the Japanese company in December 2024, Graff had around sixty boutiques worldwide, including ten in Japan. In 2013, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in recognition of his services to the jewelry industry.

What Defines the Brand

A Philosophy of Translating Diamonds into Fragrance

Graff’s entry into fragrance followed an unusual course even among luxury brands known for diamond jewelry. In April 2018, Graff signed an exclusive fragrance licensing agreement with Interparfums Inc. The initial eight-year term included three automatic renewal options of three years each, potentially extending it to 2035. Notably, at the time of the announcement, it was Graff’s only licensing agreement.

Interparfums CEO Jean Madar said at the time:

“Graff’s mantra is ‘Finding the Exceptional.’ We will interpret this unique brand’s fundamental and distinctive qualities in extraordinary fragrances and packaging. Just as Graff has sourced and polished gemstones to create the world’s most beautiful jewels, we will seek out the most sublime and rare ingredients from the natural beauty of the world, offering Graff’s clients a one-of-a-kind fragrance experience.”
— Jean Madar, Chairman and CEO of Interparfums

Meeting Walter Johnsen

To create its fragrances, Graff turned to Walter Johnsen of Interparfums. Sometimes called the “king of fragrance,” Johnsen is a creative director leading fragrance development, with experience at numerous brands including Anna Sui, Dunhill, and Gucci.

Johnsen began by visiting Graff’s flagship in London and meeting founder Laurence Graff in person to experience the brand’s DNA firsthand.

“I knew Graff as a luxury diamond company, but it was important first to immerse myself in the brand and understand its DNA, so that I could create something that represented it.”
— Walter Johnsen

The actual Lesedi La Rona diamond was secured in a closely guarded vault, so he could not see it directly. However, after closely examining a cubic-zirconia replica, Johnsen is said to have sensed the depth of creativity Graff demanded in the precision of its facets, the small faces cut into a gemstone.

Initially, Johnsen asked all the fragrance houses around the world to submit prototypes, but none of the first 120 samples seemed worthy of Graff. After visiting stores one by one in New York and London and holding repeated discussions with Graff’s marketing representative Bettina Bamberger, he approached the houses again. This time, around seventy prototypes arrived. They were narrowed down to twenty, then ten, and finally six perfumes were selected.

“When these fragrances arrive, whether or not you like that particular type of scent, you can tell the difference in quality. Each has its own signature and character, unlike anything on the market.”
— Walter Johnsen

Attention to the Bottle

The flacons, or perfume bottles, of the Lesedi La Rona Collection are inspired by the emerald-cut outline of the Graff Lesedi La Rona diamond. Made of lead-free crystal engraved with the Graff logo, they have an architectural beauty formed by long, smooth facets. Just as a diamond refracts light into multifaceted brilliance, the flacon itself is designed to embody its fragrance visually.

An Uncompromising Approach to Materials and Social Responsibility

Johnsen makes no compromises in sourcing ingredients from around the world. The pink peppercorns used in Lesedi La Rona I are picked individually by hand on a farm in Brazil’s Amazon basin, whose reforestation work is also supported. The Sichuan pepper in Lesedi La Rona II is harvested at the optimum time and then selected according to sustainability criteria by LMR, Laboratoire Monique Rémy, a specialist in natural fragrance ingredients. For Lesedi La Rona III, an exclusive agreement was made with a woman-run farm supplying roses from Grasse. The ylang-ylang, vanilla, and cloves used in several fragrances, including Lesedi La Rona I, are sourced from community farmers on Nosy Be, an island off Madagascar, and support was also provided to build a school and hospital in that community.

The Fragrance Lineup

The Lesedi La Rona Fragrance Collection

Graff’s fragrances are centered on a single line, the Lesedi La Rona Fragrance Collection.

Lesedi La Rona means “Our Light” in Setswana, the language of Botswana. The collection was inspired by the historic diamond of that name. Unearthed in November 2015 at Lucara Diamond’s Karowe mine in Botswana, the rough stone weighed 1,109 carats. At the time of its discovery, it was the second-largest gem-quality rough diamond in history after the Cullinan, a find of a scale not seen in at least a century. It failed to sell at a Sotheby’s auction in London in 2016, where the highest bid reached $61 million, and Graff acquired it for $53 million in 2017.

Eighteen months of work using cutting-edge analytical equipment and Graff’s craftsmanship produced the principal stone, the 302.37-carat Graff Lesedi La Rona, and sixty-six additional diamonds, sixty-seven in total. GIA, the Gemological Institute of America, certified the principal diamond as the largest square emerald-cut diamond in history, with the highest D color and highest clarity.

The collection officially debuted with an exclusive launch at Harrods in London in March 2020. This coincided with the beginning of the global spread of COVID-19, but sales at Harrods continued, and it is said to have become one of the store’s top three fragrances by sales during the pandemic. It arrived in Japan in February 2023. In December 2024, four additions were announced in Japan, bringing the total to ten.

The First Six Fragrances (I–VI)

The six fragrances that made up the original collection have the following characteristics.

  • Lesedi La Rona I (floral, woody, powdery): Created by Julie Pluchet. A bright citrus opening of pink peppercorn and bergamot leads to a floral heart of orris, or iris root, rose, and Egyptian jasmine. Leather, patchouli, and amber leave a mysterious trail.
  • Lesedi La Rona II (citrus, woody): A transparent yet complex fragrance woven from Moroccan neroli oil, petitgrain, Sichuan pepper, peony, and orange flower absolute.
  • Lesedi La Rona III (floral chypre): Created by Pascal Gaurin. Centered on rose centifolia from Grasse, the “hundred-petaled rose,” with saffron and bergamot, enveloped by labdanum.
  • Lesedi La Rona IV (oriental gourmand): An almost edible, delectable composition of manuka honey, Marcona almond, Brazilian coffee, and other notes.
  • Lesedi La Rona V (oriental floral): Bergamot, heliotrope, and neroli are layered with rose, violet, and ylang-ylang, while vanilla and amber leave a warm trail.
  • Lesedi La Rona VI (woody oriental): Wild Brazilian orchid opens the fragrance, joined by Madagascan clove, Egyptian jasmine, orange blossom, and the depth of Indian oud.

Four Additional Fragrances (VII–X)

The four fragrances whose addition was announced in Japan in December 2024 are each inspired by rare colored diamonds owned by Graff.

  • Lesedi La Rona VII (white floral oriental): Inspired by Graff’s celebrated “Chameleon Diamond,” a natural green diamond. Top: neroli; heart: ylang-ylang; base: vanilla.
  • Lesedi La Rona VIII (floral woody): Inspired by a natural light-pink diamond. Top: pink pepper; heart: Rosa centifolia; dry-down: patchouli. The number eight was chosen with its auspicious significance in Asian cultures in mind.
  • Lesedi La Rona IX (amber, woody, spicy): Madagascan ginger and cinnamon, with the smoky depth of black tea from China’s Fujian Province.
  • Lesedi La Rona X (oriental amber): South African geranium, rose-petal essence, and Spanish labdanum, with cedarwood and benzoin notes. Ingredients from East and West intersect.

By the Way…

The Controversy Surrounding the Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond

Laurence Graff is known for more than his role in fragrance. In December 2008, at a Christie’s auction, he purchased the historic 35.56-carat blue diamond known as the Wittelsbach Blue for approximately £16.4 million, a record auction price at the time.

Graff subsequently recut the diamond into a modern shape, removing at least four carats and renaming it the Wittelsbach-Graff. German gemologists and historians fiercely objected, with criticism comparing it to “painting over a Rembrandt.” Graff replied that the diamond had chips and wear and that recutting had brought out its true potential.

The episode is still discussed as a classic example of the tension between the owner of a diamond and the guardian of its history.

The Biggest Jewelry Robbery in London’s History

In August 2009, two men disguised with latex prosthetics and special-effects makeup robbed Graff’s London flagship at gunpoint, taking jewelry worth approximately £40 million. Sometimes described as the biggest jewelry robbery in British history, the incident prompted speculation that the robbers’ real target had been the Wittelsbach-Graff. That diamond, however, was stored in a special vault and escaped the theft.

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