OUR HISTORY

THE PASSION FOR DIAMOND

aison VERNAIN SA was founded in 1900 by Honoré VERNAIN, the grandfather, and registered in Geneva in 1903. Originally, Honoré intended to become a notary, but he was not enthusiastic about this profession. He therefore decided to learn the trade of a diamond cutter in a workshop in Ain, in neighbouring France. He then set up his own business in 1900, near Geneva railway station, in the Montbrillant district. This district owes its name not to the view of Mont Blanc, but to the fact that diamonds, called "brilliants", were cut there.

The cutting workshop was powered by hydraulics, and the first jet of water in Geneva came from a pressure relief valve in the hydraulic network in the bed of the Rhône. When the workshops closed in the evening, the hydraulic pressure was released through this valve. The workshop was then moved to Coulouvrenière, near the Rhône, where the machines were powered by an electric motor. With the arrival of rough diamonds, which were increasingly difficult to cut, and the high cost of labour in Geneva, cutting activity gradually declined.

Honoré and his son Auguste then turned to the diamond trade, gradually abandoning cutting. They continued their activities at the Coulouvrenière site until the end of the 1950s. Two successive robberies prompted them to move their offices to the Jonction district, near the police station and in an area with many watchmaking and jewellery workshops and factories.