She ‘played with diamonds before Legos and Barbie’: Anna Hu, luxury jeweller to royalty, celebrities and billionaires

Designer Anna Hu left a promising music career after an injury at 18 and turned her focus to jewellery – ‘gemstones are like music notations to me,’ she says

Hu’s collectors include Hollywood celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Gwyneth Paltrow and Uma Thurman, Middle Eastern royalty, billionaires, and entrepreneurs

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Jewellery designer Anna Hu makes one-of-a-kind pieces for royalty and Hollywood celebrities.

Published: 4:15pm, 9 Jan 2023Updated: 9:15am, 10 Jan 2023

Over the past decade, luxury jeweller Anna Hu has established herself as a force to be reckoned with in the high-end jewellery world.

The Taiwanese designer, who splits her time between her business headquarters in New York and Monaco, has quite a global repertoire.

In 2019, she broke the world record for a Chinese contemporary jewellery artist with the sale of her Dunhuang Pipa necklace for US$5.8 million in Hong Kong.

One of her works, a hand ornament named Yin Yang that was designed in collaboration with American artist-photographer Cindy Sherman, was even acquired by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, France, for its permanent collection in June 2022.

In the same month, in Maastricht in the Netherlands, Hu debuted her latest collection at The European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF) – the world’s leading fine art, antiques and design fair.

Hu, a diamond dealer’s daughter, was a prodigy cellist on her way to becoming a household name like her mentor, Yo-Yo Ma, until a debilitating injury ended her career at the age of 18.