By Paige Reddinger

Paige Reddinger

Deputy Editor, Watch & Jewelry Editor

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Messika

Today, Messika unveils a spectacular new high jewelry creation with a massive blue diamond as its centerpiece. The jaw-dropping stone is the largest and rarest blue diamond ever to be uncovered in Botswana. It was discovered as a 41.11-carat rough in 2019 when it emerged from the Orapa mine. After cutting and polishing it revealed a Fancy Deep Blue VVS2 Type IIb 20.46-carat stone.

The government of Botswana, which still owns the gem, tapped Valérie Messika, founder of her namesake company, to design a jewelry piece to highlight the stone. The result? A pendant necklace set with more that 500 diamonds on the collar and surrouning the oval-cut Okavango Blue Diamond. “I tried to let the diamond speak by itself,” Messika told Robb Report. “I had so much respect of the beauty of the stones that I wanted it to be the central part…it reminds me something vintage with this medallion surrounded by white diamonds. I want the blue to pop, the more it’s surrounded by white, the blue is stronger.”

It’s no wonder the jeweler was Botwana’s top choice. Messika founded her eponymous company in 2005, drawing on the expertise of her father, André Messika—a renowned diamond dealer whose family has been in the diamond trade for generations and who has been known to supply some of the world’s best stones to the top houses. Following in her family’s footsteps, Valérie Messika has since made a name for herself on the Place Vendôme, Paris’ premiere destination for the best jewelry in the world. Her designs have catapulted her family’s name into the spotlight with popular designs like the Move collection, known for floating mobile diamonds in oval diamond-accented shapes. Collaborations with Kate Moss and Gigi Hadid further solidified the house the new must-have jewelry amongst younger, hipper clientele.

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The jewelry piece and the stone, however, are not for sale. “This project is, for me, a tribute to natural diamonds,” she says. “It’s one of a kind and it’s a time in my career that I can work with such an amazing rare stone, so for me it’s, of course, a big honor to be the first, and for the moment, the only one to create a jewelry piece with the stone.” When asked why she would devote so much of her resources and time—it took a year to produce—to design a necklace never to be sold she says the thought never occurred to her. “Everybody focused on this stone for such a long time—all the craftsmanship, all the design people—but for me, I saw it also like a kind of tribute also to my expertise as a diamond jeweler.”

It’s not the first time she’s created a masterpiece around a rare African stone. Four years ago, she designed a jewelry piece around a cushion-shaped D-flawless 33-carat diamond from the Lucara mine in north-central Botswana. “I started the relationship with Botswana to promote the beauty of their land, creating natural diamonds, so for me it’s to be continued our relationship, and it’s important to put in light the magic of natural diamonds.” She adds that the piece is meant to celebrate the extraordinary creations from the earth, because as she puts it, “lab-born diamond are kind of like a photocopy from a laboratory.”

What is unprecedented is the diamond itself. “It’s the first time in my whole life [to see a diamond like this], and I’m not sure I will see a second…it’s very, very, very rare,” Messika emphasizes. “I think only 0.01% of the world’s diamonds can be blue.”

For now, the necklace remains a singular creation rather than an acquisition. In a luxury world obsessed with the next big thing, the Okavango Blue is a reminder that some treasures simply cannot be replicated—or bought.

Authors

Paige Reddinger

Deputy Editor, Watch & Jewelry Editor

As Robb Report's deputy editor and watch editor, Reddinger is immersed in all things horological. She has visited the top manufacturers in Switzerland and Germany, attended high-profile auctions and…
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Meet Melat Kiros, the Ethiopian-born anti-Israel socialist crusader who is DSA’s rising star after stunning upset in Colorado

Meet Melat Kiros, the Ethiopian-born anti-Israel socialist crusader who is DSA's rising star after stunning upset in Colorado

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Meet Melat Kiros, the Ethiopian-born anti-Israel socialist crusader who is DSA’s rising star after stunning upset in Colorado

By Ryan King Published July 1, 2026, 2:06 p.m. ET

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WASHINGTON — Democratic socialism is spreading West.

Political newcomer Melat Kiros, 29, who took down 15-term Democratic incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Col.) in a stunning primary upset Tuesday, is riding a wave of anti-Israel and anti-ICE sentiment sweeping her party.

The Ethiopian-born PhD student has pushed to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), suggested that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks were “inevitable,” downplayed suggestions that a firebombing of a Jewish rally was an act of antisemitism, and more.

Once in the House of Representatives, which is considered likely because she’s in a safe blue district, Kiros has vowed to push Democrats as far left as possible and to oppose Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) becoming speaker.

Political awakening

Kiros refined many of her far-left views in law school at Notre Dame in the early 2020s, a period she describes as her political awakening, as the country was roiled by the COVID-19 pandemic and peak wokeness.

“I literally watched the Federalist Society handpicking some of my classmates onto the judge track in their decades-long bid to pack the courts,” she complained, according to Vox. “…I just lost faith in the system; I think a lot of young people did.”

Democratic congressional candidate Melat Kiros smiles at her primary election night watch party. — The democratic socialist has been a staunch critic of capitalism, Israel, and ICE. AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak

After law school in 2022, she joined the law firm Sidley Austin in New York, where she worked as a regulatory and enforcement associate. The following year, she was fired for writing a viral open letter lambasting law firms for pushing to crack down on antisemitism on college campuses.

“By chilling future lawyers’ employment prospects for criticism of the Israeli government’s actions and its legitimacy, you are complicit in Israel’s weaponization of anti-Semitism against legitimate concerns for the right of self-determination and the livelihood of the Palestinian people,” she wrote in the missive.

Sidley Austin demanded she take the letter down, but Kiros claims she refused and was fired as a result.

“I didn’t flinch because I stood by every word and I always will,” she boasted during her victory speech Tuesday.

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That move drew headlines and boosted her name recognition in lefty circles.

After losing her law gig, Kiros moved back to Colorado, where her family had immigrated while she was just 11-months-old. Her father had been picked in America’s Diversity Visa Lottery, per her campaign website.

Back home, she enrolled in a PhD program in public policy and worked as a barista.

Then, in the middle of last year, she decided to launch a seemingly long-shot primary challenge against DeGette, who is widely considered to be a very progressive lawmaker and has served in Congress longer than Kiros has been alive.

DeGette had the backing of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Diana DeGette speaking into a pink microphone at a League of Women Voters forum. — Rep. Diana DeGette was one of the more progressive members of the House Democratic Caucus. Denver Post via Getty Images

But Kiros’ candidacy caught fire with the DSA and other lefty groups that were hunting for candidates to take on incumbent Democrats and push the party further leftwards.

One of the major differences between the two was Kiros’ tougher stance against Israel. DeGette faced grassroots pushback for supporting defensive aid to Israel.

Kiros, however, made tough talk against the Jewish state a feature of her campaign.

For example, she told notorious lefty streamer Hasan Piker that the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack was an “inevitable consequence of apartheid,” though she later clarified she wasn’t trying to say it was justified.

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Piker is a very controversial streamer, having declared that “America deserved 9/11″ and praised the “brave mujahideen” who injured Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas).

In a similar vein, she told 9News journalist Kyle Clark that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were an “inevitable consequence” of US foreign policy.

Kiros has stirred local controversy for downplaying the role of antisemitism in the June 1, 2025, firebombing attack at a weekly Jewish gathering aimed at bringing attention to the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas. One person was killed and a dozen were injured in that attack.

Melat Kiros speaking to supporters at an election-night watch party. — Melat Kiros has indicated she won’t support Hakeem Jeffries for speaker. Getty Images

The attacker, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, screamed “Free Palestine” before later stating that he “wanted to kill all Zionist people,” according to the FBI.

Kiros repeatedly declined to call it antisemitism and told NOTUS that it wasn’t “entirely obvious that it was just motivated by antisemitism.”

Many of her positions are similar to those of other DSA members, including support for Medicare for All, a modified Green New Deal, and mass amnesty. Kiros also wants a 10% slash in Pentagon spending.

“People are seeing that capitalism is responsible for a lot of the degradation that we’re seeing in our economy, that we’re seeing in our democracy, that we’re certainly seeing in our climate as well,” she claimed in a recent interview.

“They’re demanding a new way to organize our economy.”

Should she win in November, she will be the first Gen. Z woman to serve in Congress and the second Zoomer overall, after Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.)

She is riding a socialist revolt within the Democratic Party, as far-left candidates have won primaries across New York, Maine, Illinois, and elsewhere heading into the midterms.

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