OUR STORY

At the end of the 1960s, the Western world was coming unstuck.

François Garaude, a member of the quiet German-Pratin bourgeoisie, received this thunderclap like a whiplash. May 68 called him irresistibly towards the open sea, and it was India that he decided to explore.

At the age of 16, leaving his scandalized family behind, he hitchhiked across the vast continent of Central Asia, where each day was a new challenge, each encounter a danger, a perdition or a fantastic discovery. In all cases, the unexpected became part of his journey, and François Garaude explored a country where rites and beliefs shape thoughts and change lives. He understood that in India, spirituality takes over everything, and explains the environment.

Amongst these sacred buildings, where men look to the sky, the invisible inhabits the visible, the place of each element is important, and nothing is left to chance. Back in France, François Garaude studied architecture, philosophy and cinema. Through philosophy and cinema, he reflected on a new vision of the world. Following his trip to India, he wanted to look at the Western culture through another perspective. With architecture, he wanted to understand the organization of space and the main principles that govern it, including light – the first material of architecture. Yet again, the call of the sea torments him. During his studies, the young man built a 14-meter boat and embarked on a fantastic crossing of the Atlantic between France and Brazil. There, he meets the one who will be his wife, but the young Brazilian wanted to finish her studies so François had to wait a few years there.

While waiting to return to Europe with her, François Garaude headed off to discover the emeralds of Bahia. This is the moment everything changed. Fascinated by these exceptional stones, he quickly became their specialist. After selling his first stone, then several, then many, the future jeweler and producer got into the trading game. He decided to make it his profession, traveling the world’s most beautiful mining regions – Colombia, Sri Lanka, Burma – gradually discovering the value and beauty of gems, learning how to read a stone, and how to value it. This is when the company got its start. This acquisition marked the beginning of more than 40 years of expertise in the buying, cutting and selling of colored gemstones to brands and designers worldwide.

Over the past years, the human and environmental issues associated with gemstones mining and trading have become central to the concerns of the houses. The raw materials market has thus evolved towards greater transparency, and some mines have integrated regular audits into their model to guarantee compliance with ethical standards. For the past 10 years, Garaude has been committed to uncompromising compliance with these same standards, by assuring full transparency to its customers, by guaranteeing the absence of treatment in its stones, and by certifying all of its stones.

As traceability became more and more important in the trade, the Paris-based company expanded and acquired an office in Bangkok in 2016. As this city became the nerve-center of gemstones trading, opening an office and an in-house cutting factory there allowed Garaude to be positioned at the heart of the supply chain. It also enabled Garaude to take part in more than a dozen major rough auctions with leading mining groups each year since 2019. By focusing on its operational excellence, Garaude has been able to develop a “mine-to-market” model, integrating and thus mastering the entire value chain. Garaude cutting excellence and savoir-faire has been recognized and in February 2023, we had the opportunity to cut the world’s largest gem quality ruby ever discovered: The Estrela de Fura.

Thus, Garaude had been able to achieve 280% growth from 2019 to 2022, being appointed by Les Echos magazine as one of the top 65 Champions of Growth in 2024.

It also permitted the company to expand, by opening a New York based office in 2023, moving forward in the development of new markets.