The HRD Awards are today’s most prestigious diamond jewellery design contest in the world. For the 13th edition of the competition, the 2009 contest, 654 designers sent in a record 1,089 designs.

Originally launched in 1984 as the “Antwerp Diamond High Council Awards,” with the aim of promoting extravagance and avant-garde jewellery design in Belgium, in 2003, it was decided to open up the awards to an international audience. The international jury that adjudicated the contest looked for high levels of creativity, innovation and design excellence in contemporary diamond jewellery. In addition to creativity, the judges are also considered aesthetic quality, wearability and craftsmanship.

A great deal of thought is put into selecting the theme of each awards contest in order to promote extraordinary designs as a result of out-of-the-box thinking. The 2009 theme is “Once upon a time…my favourite fairy tale.”  The 2007 awards theme was "A night at the opera."

The contest offers a forum to designers to present and promote their jewels worldwide. The competition is open to professional and non-professional designers from all over the world. Entries must be original designs which have not previously been put on display or commercialized. The diamond aspect of the design and the interpretation of the theme are critical and the jewellery item must contain at least 1 carat and a maximum of 25 carats of diamonds.

In addition to cash prizes all the laureates will benefit from an international promotion programme, with the jewellery pieces first exhibited at Antwerp’s Provincial Diamond Museum. The exhibition then travels around the world for a year to countries such as China, Japan and Italy where the collection will be exhibited at important international jewellery fairs, as well as in museums and in jewellery galleries.

The AWDC buys the winning item and gives it on loan to the Diamond Museum Province of Antwerp for permanent display.