Founded in 1898, Frieden is one of the leaders in Swiss jewellery manufacturing, producing exceptional creations for jewellers across Switzerland, Asia, America, and the Middle East. The company has over 25 employees that include designers, goldsmiths, jewellers and gem cutters who work out of the company’s workshops in the small town of Thun in Switzerland’s picturesque Bernese Oberland.

One of the company’s most striking collections is its Rainbow line with earrings, bracelets, rings, and necklaces adorned with naturally-coloured sapphires that follow the colours of the rainbow. The majority of the world’s sapphires are heated to enhance their colour and naturally-coloured sapphires are particularly rare.

Thanks to its part-ownership in the Pink Valley Mine in Madagascar, Frieden has direct access to some of the world’s most exquisite pastel-coloured sapphires, but they are not so easy to retrieve. Though the sapphires in the Pink Valley mine lie relatively close to the surface — between 6 and 18 meters — they can only be extracted by hand. This process is long and laborious and makes them even more precious.

Thomas Frieden, owner and gemmologist, also explains how difficult it is to create the perfect rainbow: “Each stone has to meet a very high standard in terms of colour, quality, and cut. The transitions between the different colours in the rainbow also have to be perfect. In order to meet these high requirements, the purest and most beautifully coloured stones from the production of the Pink Valley Mine are sorted... The selected sapphires used for the rainbow lines correspond to less than one per cent of the total production. Before you can start putting the lines together, you have to go through 1,000 rough stones of different sizes and colours to find the perfect flow of hues.”

Frieden’s direct access to these naturally-coloured sapphires results in beautifully crafted rainbows of stonesthat capture the whole spectrum of light in a line of exquisite jewellery.