Diamonds go designer

Hearts on Fire pursues a jeweler's dream: creating a branded diamond

FORTUNE, November 12, 2007 — "Hearts of fire, creates love desire, takes you high and higher...." The sounds of the Las Vegas Mass Choir singing the old Earth, Wind & Fire hit spilled out of a ballroom in the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. Inside the darkly lit space, over a thousand people swayed to the music, their hands in the air. An unwitting observer might think he had stumbled into a mega-church or a revival meeting. But actually it was a convention of jewelers.

These particular jewelers, who work for independent mom-and-pop stores around the world, were in town at the invitation of a diamond company called Hearts on Fire. Hearts on Fire sells the World's Most Perfectly Cut Diamond, and it sponsors a three-day Vegas extravaganza that it calls Hearts on Fire University - HOFU, for short.