“Somebody sent me pictures of the stadiums, you know, the complete stadiums. And I looked at these stadiums and I just thought to myself: Wow! These are going to make the beautiful pieces of jewelry. So I kept it in my heart and I mentally pictured these pieces with diamonds and it became a dream and I started chasing this dream.”
The skill and material Pillay puts into the stadium pieces are impressive.
“I sourced the highest quality diamonds, even including the yellow diamonds of the highest quality and so is the Tanzanite. I mean the Tanzanite on the Moses Mabhida piece is a 14, a 13.96, almost a 14 carat. It’s a flawless, triple-A quality which is the highest quality Tanzanite.”
Who will buy the precious jewelry? Pillay is confident there is a market for the stadium models.
“These two particular pieces, they are wearable pieces. The Soccer City is a little bit bigger, but, you know, I have seen American music videos. And that’s small to some of the pieces that the rap stars wear. Maybe I am hoping one of the rap stars will pick that piece up you know.”
The pieces are on sale at prices equivalent to 71,000 U.S. dollars for the Moses Mabhida Stadium, 58,000 for the Soccer City Stadium, and 45,000 for the Green Point Stadium model.
Source: Englosh NDTV