It is 1896, and a boy is born on the Upper West Side of New York who will one day place diamonds on the necks of the most famous women in the world. New York defined Harry Winston—just as he would come to embody a rare devotion to culture and philanthropy.

The King of Diamonds was first a lover of the city—and his New York collection is the proof. First unveiled in 2018 and ever-evolving, like the city that inspires it, the collection draws from the city’s landmarks, textures, and accumulated histories, from the brownstone facade to Central Park, from Grand Central to Fifth Avenue.

Here are the eight facets that make up Harry Winston’s New York collection.

“Each gem they showed me was like a friend, unique and unforgettable.” —Harry Winston

City Lights

New York is an unparalleled light show. From the mesmerizing skyline to the illuminated Broadway theater district which was nicknamed “The Great White Way” in the late 1800s when it became one of the first streets in the city illuminated by electric lamps—the white blaze of street lamps and theater marquees was visible from miles away. Winston and his wife were regulars in those seats.

An infra red image of the southern skyline of Manhattan as seen from Fort Jay on Governors Island, Governors Island, New York, mid to late 1930s. (Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)

The City Lights suite reimagines New York’s dazzling lights in jewel form, their radiance rendered into colorful diamonds and vivid precious stones.

Suite of City Lights Earrings. Courtesy of Harry Winston.

Brownstone

The brownstone is the definitive address of a certain New York dream. First popularized in the mid-19th century, these rowhouses spread across Manhattan and Brooklyn as the city expanded northward. What looks like solid stone is actually brick dressed in a thin veneer of sandstone, each facade carved by hand to construct the illusion of something far more monumental and an ode to the Upper West Side neighborhood where Winston was born. ​​

View of brownstones on Fifth Avenue between 60th & 61st Streets, New York, New York, 1900. (Photo by Museum of the City of New York/Getty Images)

Those handsome facades are translated in Harry Winston’s Brownstone suite as baguette-cut, round brilliant, and marquise diamonds arranged in their same geometric motifs.

“No two diamonds are alike. Each diamond has a different nature.”

—Harry Winston

Brownstone Earrings with Blue and Yellow Sapphires and Diamonds. Courtesy of Harry Winston.

Cathedral

From his atelier at 7 East 51st Street, Harry Winston looked out onto St. Patrick’s Cathedral, its twin spires rising 330 feet above Fifth Avenue—a constant presence in his daily life and work. Completed in 1878, the neo-Gothic landmark is defined by its verticality, intricate stonework, and precise symmetry.

The spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral soar heavenwards over the figure of Atlas supporting the world in New York’s Rockefeller Center. (Bettman/ Getty Images)

That view informs the Cathedral Collection, where those architectural principles are translated into a showstopping necklace of striking lightness and control. Its silhouette traces a vaulted arch, articulated through a continuous line of diamonds that feels both structured and fluid.

Cathedral Necklace. Courtesy of Harry Winston.

Pear-shaped emerald drops hang like pendants from a cathedral ceiling, introducing rhythm, color, and movement. The result captures the spirit of the landmark—its height, balance, and quiet grandeur—reimagined at the scale of the body.

Eagle

Across New York, eagles perch in quiet vigilance—cast in steel and stone, they roost along cornices, crown Beaux-Arts facades, and grip the edges of spires. At Grand Central Terminal, they spread their wings in bronze, part ornament, part emblem—silent sentries watching over the constant motion below.

Eagle statue, New York, New York, early twentieth century. (Photo by William J. Roege/The New York Historical/Getty Images)

These majestic birds of prey have long been woven into the city’s architectural language, symbols of power, clarity, and command.

Eagle Yellow Diamond Necklace. Courtesy of Harry Winston.

Drawing on these enduring forms, Harry Winston’s Eagle suite translates the city’s sculptural guardians into high jewelry. Colorless and fancy yellow diamonds are arranged in sweeping, wing-like arcs—light catching and scattering as if in motion—capturing the precision and poise of a bird suspended mid-flight.

Eagle Earrings. Courtesy of Harry Winston.

Fifth Avenue Arch

Fifth Avenue, home to Winston’s flagship, was once known as Millionaire’s Row. The avenue was lined with the private mansions of Gilded Age dynasties in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Vanderbilts alone constructed three successive residences along its stretch, each more elaborate than the last—so arresting that steel magnate Henry Clay Frick, passing one in his carriage, said simply: “That is all I shall ever want.”

Washington Square Arch, Greenwich Village, New York City. Angelo Rizzuto, Anthony Angel Collection, October 1953. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The avenue’s reputation as the world’s most prestigious address today grew directly from that era, when new American fortunes competed in limestone and marble for a single block of Manhattan. The grandeur of the famed avenue stretched all the way to Greenwich Village, culminating in the Washington Square Arch, completed in 1895—a Gilded Age monument that continues to inspire.

Fifth Avenue Arch Necklace. Courtesy of Harry Winston.

The Fifth Avenue Arch suite traces the elegant curves of the avenue’s iconic archway in platinum, with 26 pear-shaped sapphires totaling over 132 carats.

Manhattan Adornment

Manhattan’s skyline is the accumulation of 400 years of ambition. The early 20th-century building boom transformed the island into a vertical city, with Beaux-Arts flourishes, Art Deco ornament, and Gothic spires layered over one another block by block. Each era left its own decorative mark on the city’s facades.

10th May 1962: The Empire state building towers over the New York skyline. (Photo by William Lovelace/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Drawing directly from those architectural accents, the Manhattan Adornment suite consists of sapphires, tsavorites, yellow diamonds, and emeralds set in bold geometric patterns recalling the embellishments of the city’s most iconic buildings.

Manhattan Adornment necklace. Courtesy of Harry Winston.

Graffiti

SoHo’s streets were the original gallery. In 1973, a collective of graffiti artists mounted the first ever gallery exhibition of graffiti art right in SoHo and drew serious reviews from New York’s major art critics. A decade later, Basquiat and Haring would make the same journey from street to institution and become legends.

Portrait of a woman, dressed in leopard-print clothing, as she sits in a graffiti-covered subway car , New York, New York, 1987. (Photo by Rita Barros/Getty Images)

By the 1980s, uptown met downtown—and the divide that once defined New York culture gave way. Dealers from the Upper East Side were making the trip to SoHo and back, and the city’s art world was one.

Graffiti Diamond Bracelet. Courtesy of Harry Winston.

The Graffiti suite extends that lineage, inspired by the lore of the subway paired with downtown’s creative pulse, etching SoHo’s visual language in blue and pink sapphires and diamonds set in platinum.

Pink Sapphire and Diamond Graffiti Necklace. Courtesy of Harry Winston.

718 Marble Marquetry

 In 1960, at the height of modernist restraint, Winston commissioned French architect Jacques Régnault to design his new salon at 718 Fifth Avenue, clad in travertine, styled after an 18th-century Parisian townhouse. The move was considered by his insurers to be one of the single largest transfers of jewels ever arranged. The night before, Winston asked his staff to gather his favorite gems so he could pack them personally for the five-block journey up the avenue. Every detail of the new salon, from floor to ceiling, was considered with the same care.

The Marble Marquetry inspired detailing at Harry Winston’s Fifth Avenue flagship salon in New York. Courtesy of Harry Winston.

That same sense of drama, narrative, and architectural precision is distilled into the collection. The salon’s black-and-white marble detailing is translated into jewelry for the 718 Marble Marquetry suite: 10 pear-shaped gemstones encircling an emerald-cut diamond. Recently added colorways expand the palette with ruby, pink sapphire, spessartite, yellow diamond, and black spinel.

718 Marble Marquetry Pink Sapphire and Diamond Earrings. Courtesy of Harry Winston.

“Of course, the best way to learn about diamonds is to own them.”

—Harry Winston

The collection, like the city, continues to evolve—expanding, adapting, accruing meaning over time. That, after all, is the essence of New York.

-Text by Adnan Qiblawi