London, England (Credit: Diliff)

Not a lot of good has come out of the riots that rocked London and other English cities in 2011. In the year that has followed, economic indicators haven't improved and social disparities haven't disappeared. The neighborhoods that saw street violence and larcenous looting are as rough as ever. But a recent immigrant from the opposite side of the world is determined to find a diamond in all of that rough – or if not, then at the very least, create one.

In the aftermath of pitched battles between disaffected youth and police officers, Mexican artist Teresa Margolles collected the ashes of buildings that had been set ablaze and burnt to the ground. Then, using the HPHT process – used to morph the cremated remains of loved ones into valuable gems - she converted them into a literal diamond weighing three-quarters of a carat. Margolles says that she metamorphosed the charred architecture into a polished diamond in order to preserve its memory. Now if only we could apply the HPHT process to all the causes of social strife, and not only to their symptoms.

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Stunning diamond-studded dress (Credit: Tov International)

If I tell you that there's a dress somewhere out there in the world that costs $15 million because it's covered in polished diamonds, what do you imagine it might look like? For that kind of cash, I expect to be completely blown away. Something really magical, maybe a little bit of trim made from virgin unicorn hide. Something other-worldly that a Natalie Portman might have worn as a space alien empress. Something other than… a plain black dress?

I'm sure than Chloe & Reese only had the best of intentions when they designed an evening dress with 100 3-carat round diamonds from New York diamondiers Tov International. But both the style of the dress and the pattern in which the diamonds are laid out on it – 85 identical diamonds evenly-spaced out on a plain back background - seems to consciously avoid drawing any attention to the dress itself or the person wearing it. That would make the dress' strongest selling point that it's less likely to be stolen. Perhaps then, it can be best put to use as a sexy, safe and secure intercontinental diamond delivery service?

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Diamond-encrusted Rubik's Cube (Credit: Chaim Moskovitz)

Truly, when cheesy childhood tchotchkes receive the bejeweling treatment, you know that the boundaries of what are and are not considered appropriate objects to be diamond-ized is have expanded. This week, Rubik's cube creator Erno Rubik will travel to the United States to open a special exhibit in honor of the three-dimensional puzzle popularized in the 1980's, which is set to include a polished diamond-encrusted cube worth $2.5 million!

But a search through the archives at IsraeliDiamond.co.il reveals that the Texas team that produced the cube is not nearly the only one; local diamondier Chaim Moskovitz, who has worked in Israel, designing and manufacturing mainly diamond jewelry for the last 25 years, has turned the colorful cube into a light-hearted luxury item, as well. And the popular puzzle isn't Moskovitz's only diamond adaptation of a kid's toy: he's also produced jewelry made out of a set of diamond-plated Lego blocks.

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