Diamonds and gold adorn world’s most expensive mask
$1.5M commission took 25 diamond setters, artisans to complete
Amid the chaos and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, a jeweller has designed a gold protective mask studded with diamonds, touted as the world’s most expensive face covering at $1.5 million.
Among the mask’s key components: 250 grams of pure 18k gold; 3,608 natural black and white diamonds weighing 210 carats; and a slot to insert a disposable N99 mask, which filters
out airborne particulates and provides protection from COVID-19.
The mask is the creation of Yvel, the Israeli luxury jewelry maker based near Jerusalem and was commissioned by an anonymous Los Angeles businessman and art collector.
Yvel entrusted the project to 25 of its top artisans and diamond setters. It required, company owner Isaac Levy said, “an intensive production process to ensure the mask was compliant to safety regulations.”
Levy declined to identify his client. But in a telephone interview Wednesday, he said the customer came up with the idea as a way to help the company navigate the downturn caused by the pandemic economy.
The project is a way “to help support Israeli industry as well as Yvel’s150 employees in Israel and the United States during the pandemic,” he said.
Those employees, most of whom are Jewish immigrants from 23 countries, will receive portions of the $1.5 million to help make up earnings lost during the pandemic.
The company operates a trade school near its factory that educates and trains immigrants from Ethiopia who first migrated to Israel in the 1990s.
On Dec. 10, the first day of Hanukkah, Levy said, “we’re going to divide all of the profits we have made from this diamond mask and we’re going to give to each and every Yvel member a cheque.”