Malaysian designer creates $30 million diamond dress

The world may be cloaked in economic gloom, but the makers of a dress decked with 751 diamonds worth $30 milllion are confident that the desire to flaunt wealth has not quite been been extinguished, Reuters reports.

Worth nearly 5 times the top bonus paid out to American International Group Inc executives, the silk and taffeta evening gown has a 70 carat pear-shaped diamond at the centre of the bodice, topped off with a train sparkling with diamonds.

«Stocks drop, gold is even falling but a diamond is forever. This is a dress with diamonds. Why do backwards, why can't we go forwards?» the designer of the dress, Faisol Abdullah, told Reuters as he showed off his sketches.

Abdullah is rushing to finish the dress, dubbed the «Nightingale of Kuala Lumpur,» in time for the STYLO Fashion festival early next month in the Malaysian capital.

Asked if the dress would attract buyers, Nancy Yeoh, chief executive of STYLO which commissioned the dress said: «Its art and there are still enough rich people who would want to buy.»