I’ve spent the last few days reviewing the diamond jewellery pieces that will make up the founding collection for diamondthrills.

It’s over a month since I went to Basel in Switzerland to attend ‘BaselWorld 2009 – the World Watch and Jewellery Show’.

During my two days at the show, I visited dozens of potential suppliers, viewing their merchandise, identifying this year’s trends in diamond jewellery, considering prices, and trying to pick out a handful of key suppliers and some of their more eye-catching pieces of diamond jewellery.

Since then, I visited the UK office of a couple of suppliers and I’ve been in touch with others that don’t have UK representation, mostly in Italy and Germany.

I am now surrounded by printed spreadsheets and images of the pieces that I picked out (and some of the images don’t do the pieces any favours so I’m having to rely on my memory of what they looked like), and I’m getting close to identifying the ~dozen pieces that will be presented on the diamondthrills website in a few weeks — ready for hire and kicking off the diamondthrills business.

So this is a critical process for the business.  I need to get the product right and to get an appealing range of pieces: a range of prices, range of piece types, styles etc.  It’s make or break stuff.  And yet I don’t feel too intimidated by the implications of my choices — I have to trust my judgement, and of course I am also taking some soundings from female friends (& wife) in order to get some sort of validation of the choices that I am making.

One decision is easy: no rings.  Certainly brides won’t want to hire their diamond engagement ring, but there’s also the issue of sizing: even if people wanted to hire a diamond ring (for example a ‘right hand ring’) then diamondthrills would need to stock a whole range of sizes for every single style.  That doesn’t feel like a sensible option for the business.

So if not rings, then we must we looking at earrings, pendants/necklaces, and bracelets/bangles.  I did consider tiaras for wedding hire but I think that brides who wear tiaras are often wearing a family heirloom so they aren’t going to be hiring a tiara.  But if we get requests for tiaras then I’m going to have to think about putting one or two on the menu in the months ahead.

The pieces that I am looking at all have diamonds but no other gem stones or semi-precious stones: we are diamondthrills - the clue is in the name – and we want to focus on what we know best.  Most of what we are looking at is 18k white gold, with perhaps some yellow/rose gold in one or two pieces, but the collection will be mostly white diamonds on white gold: classic and timeless.

So the diamondthrills collection will feature a mix of earrings, pendants, necklaces, bracelets and bangles, all featuring diamonds and white gold.  It looks like rental fees will start at around £80 per week and for the best pieces the hire charge will be up to around £500.

Any views?  We are always interested to hear what people think, especially when it comes to something as important as our diamond jewellery, so please feel free to comment below or to complete our 2-minute survey.  Tell us what you think!