On Women’s Day, one of the beauties of the Rainbow Nation will be crowned with, well, a beautiful rainbow of a crown when they win the 2019 Miss South Africa pageant.
Called the uBuhle crown, it was inspired by uBuhle bethingo lenkosazana (the beauty of the rainbow), and created by American Swiss in collaboration with world-renowned jewellery designer Johan Louw of Uwe Koetter.
Here are some fast facts about it:
- The colourful design around the base of the crown is a nod to traditional Ndebele patterns, while the larger princess cut stones rising up from it are intended to resemble shooting stars.
- It took 192 hours to manufacturer the crown; sorting all the stones needed to adorn it took 36 hours alone.
- It’s made from sterling silver and studded with 2,586 fine-cut cubic zirconia stones — that’s a total of 182 carats of bling.
- It weighs 517g, which is slightly more than a typical block of butter you’d buy at the supermarket.
- It’s valued at a whopping R500,000!
