Victoria Reynolds, the chief gemologist of Tiffany & Co.

Billions of years ago, some of Earth’s carbon became trapped about 120 miles underground and subjected to intense pressure and high temperatures. Violent volcanic eruptions brought the chemical compound back to the surface, where it transformed into diamonds. It is a unique, millennia-long cycle that allows a selection of these geological wonders and other gems to regularly end up on Victoria Reynolds’ workbench at Tiffany & Co.’s headquarters in New York.

Their origin, their discovery, and their polishing is something Reynolds describes as “absolutely fascinating.” “Each and every gemstone and diamond is unique,” explains Reynolds, who, since 2020, has been the chief gemologist and vice president of high jewelry diamond and gemstone acquisition at the renowned jewelry house.

She is the first woman to hold this position at a company where she has worked for 38 years, her entire professional life. She says it is an honor, given the company’s legacy. “Tiffany deserves a lot of recognition because, generally, the gem and diamond business is led by men, although there’s no reason for it to be that way. Perhaps because it’s a family business and multigenerational.”

Reynolds welcomes EL PAÍS to one of the spacious rooms on the 10th floor of Tiffany’s Manhattan headquarters and points to a table she describes as her favorite workspace. It’s an elegant, glass-walled room that offers stunning views of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. She admits she’s still amazed by the scenery. “Mondays are my best day,” she adds, describing her work rhythm. “That’s when I dedicate about three hours to evaluating the quality of the stones.” It’s time to look into color, clarity, cut, and carat weight. She adds, “as long as I’m in the office.” “One of the things I love about my job is that no two days are alike.”

To get diamonds, emeralds, rubies, tourmalines, and kunzites to the jewelry store, one of Reynolds’s tasks is to travel the world to find and acquire the pieces. She estimates that she travels the equivalent of four months a year. Sometimes she organizes a trip after a call from one of her contacts, alerting her to the existence of something extraordinary on the market. “I love those calls, and they happen because we have a close relationship with the gem dealer community around the world. They know that if there’s an exceptional diamond or a gem with a particular color, mine is the first number they have to call.”

Reynolds explains that one of the reasons her phone rings first is because of Tiffany’s tradition, a history in which diamonds and vibrant colors play a crucial role. But she also acknowledges being fortunate to represent a jewelry brand renowned for the work of George Kunz, considered the first gemologist in the United States and the discoverer of semiprecious stones like kunzite.

The work of Reynolds’ team is accompanied by a series of protocols that guarantee the traceability of the gems. “We are one of the few jewelers, if not the only ones, that buys rough diamonds and cuts them ourselves,” she explains. This is facilitated by a procedure — the Kimberley Process — that ensures the stones come from conflict-free zones. “For years we have built a chain of custody, and since 2020, clients know exactly where the diamonds come from and who cut them; it’s like a passport.”

When she thinks about the aspect of her work that takes her from country to country, she says an adventure film character comes to mind. “Maybe I’m like a more elegant version of Indiana Jones,” she says with a smile, although she soon admits that, if we’re talking about fiction, there’s a lot of Holly Golightly — the protagonist of Breakfast at Tiffany’s — in her. Golightly found calm in the jewelry store window. Reynolds found in the same place, and in Christmas shopping with her father, a way to channel the interest she’d had in jewelry since childhood.

She studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and, after graduating in 1987, joined Tiffany. “I realized that to do my job well, I had to be an expert, and a year later, I started studying gemology,” she recalls. This eventually led her to the product development department and working with the buying teams she now manages.

In New York, she works with Nathalie Verdeille, chief artistic officer of jewelry and high jewelry, on the Blue Book, an annual themed collection. In 2025, under the title Sea of ​​Wonder, she drew inspiration from ocean life. “Each year, Nathalie presents an inspiration board that suggests textures and colors. It’s her interpretation of what the collection will look like, and the color palette is what guides my team in finding stones that complement it. They might be blue, green, or moonstone.”

Verdeille draws inspiration from them. “It could be the color, the shape, a single stone, or a group of them,” she explains. It’s a selection process that takes Reynolds’ team about six months and involves working two or three years in advance. “I’m currently buying gems for 2029,” she explains. And what does she look for in the stones? “The beauty of nature, of a sunrise or sunset, something extraordinary, a fleeting moment that is remembered but then disappears. What makes them so exceptional is that the color is encapsulated forever and frozen in time. These precious stones, billions of years old, remind us of our mortality.”

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