Valérie Messika is not only a very smart entrepreneur, she is also a big-hearted woman, as we saw when she recently endowed a beautiful piece – the Move Romance Long Necklace in pink gold worth 8,500 Euros – to Fashion Trust Arabia, an act which underlined the importance of the latter’s mission and its very DNA. Messika knows that the Middle East is bursting with talents and that it is necessary to nurture them, and give them all the support they deserve.
A quick jump in the past – in 2005 exactly, when Valérie Messika, the daughter of a prominent diamond dealer, launched her brand of luxury jewelry “Messika” in Paris. She specializes in white diamonds, combining sobriety with rock’n’roll, mixing the perpetual solemnity of the diamond with the ebullient glitter of fashion.
Messika owes her impressive success (her brand has a worldwide presence in 55 countries and boasts 450 points of sale) to three contributing factors.
Firstly, her father who never stopped telling her that “each diamond is unique”. At the early age of 10, she was already sorting through his gems and learning how to identify them. André Messika encouraged his daughter to spread her wings and guided her through to each milestone in her career.
Flair and intuition did also hugely contributed to Messika’s success. In an interview with Forbes France in 2020, she stated, “I want to conceal the jewelry setting as much as possible, to remove barriers between diamond and derma, allowing the stone to embed itself into a woman’s skin, much like a tattoo”.
Valérie Messika at work with her dad, André Messika, a prominent French diamond dealer. Credit : Gil Hayon
And then came Beyoncé…
The final factor in the French entrepreneur’s success is … Beyoncé. In 2014, while staying at the Royal Monceau Hotel, the American star falls in love with a very modern double phalanx Messika ring on display at the hotel. The jewelry house immediately gifts her the ring. A few days later, the singer posts a picture of herself on Instagram,wearing the ring. It went viral! Furthermore, in 2018, in an unprecedented move, Beyoncé and Jay-Z film their music video “Apes**t” at the Louvre with Beyoncé sporting a million Euro Messika ensemble. Fewer iconic branding moments have ever occurred, leading the brand into a new dimension attesting to the diamond’s eternal and trans-generational identity. Valerie Messika is proud that “young people want to get married in Messika”; the brand has seduced stars from the young super model Gigi Hadid to the iconic Kate Moss.
Diamonds, diamonds and more diamonds – yes, but from the heart, just like the collaboration between Messika and FTA. “I am delighted to donate the value of a Move Romance necklace to FTA as a way of giving back to the MENA region that I love so much. I’d also like to thank our partners Ali bin Ali Luxury for making this happen,” says Valérie Messika. I’ve been witnessing the impressive growth of the MENA region’s creative industries which continue to blossom thanks to the efforts of platforms like FTA. It’s my pleasure to support FTA’s mission in shedding light on the region’s creatives and giving them the recognition and exposure they deserve.”
