Our Creative Director, Renata Bernard featured on Australian Financial Review Magazine

The Australian Financial Review Magazine is Australia’s leading monthly inserted magazine delivering the highest quality content with a focus on exclusive news, breaking features, profiles in business and politics and an unparalleled reputation for combining gravitas and glamour coverage of fashion, luxury and lifestyle.

Life & Leisure is inserted into the Friday and weekend edition of The Australian Financial Review newspaper for advertising environment for luxury clients. It covers fashion, jewellery, design, travel, property and more, in every issue. In November article issue, you will find that our Creative Director of Opal Minded, Dr Renata Bernard was featured.

The article focuses on ‘How opals found their shine‘ featuring the words and point of view of Renata Bernard and along with other designers about opals. Since the Australian gemstone has become highly prized by jewellers and collectors “There’s not enough education around opals,” says creative director Renata Bernard, whose family business, Opal Minded, specialises in the much-coveted boulder and black variety and regularly fields queries from collectors worldwide.

Opals have had a PR problem for centuries, being thought of as both enchanting and repelling. Opals are more fragile than diamonds and sapphires and aren’t wisest for daily wear, but Bernard says couples are now considering them for engagement rings.

Although Renata Bernard’s and McKinney’s glittering offerings range in dollar value from eye-wateringly expensive right up to invitation-only deals done behind closed doors, there are chic entry-point options.

According to Renata, the excitement an opal generates comes from its movement. “It isn’t a static stone,” she explains. “It’s the play of colour that captivates.”

“Opals carry a perception that they’re for the low-end tourist market. But as with any stone, there’s a huge variation in quality. We’ve had guides come in with tourist groups before, point at a few things and walk out saying we can take you somewhere where opals are a fraction of the price. But the quality we carry is impeccable.” – Renata Bernard