FEATURE
FEATURE
LAB-GROWN DIAMONDS
Would you buy lab-grown
diamond jewellery?
De Beers, the world’s best-known miner and producer of natural diamonds for over 125 years, has
announced a new lab-grown diamond range set for launch this September. What does this move mean
for the company, the global diamond market, and how will the industry react?
ALESSANDRO CARRARA finds out
“Synthetic diamonds will never replace a natural diamond,”
says Leonard Zell, Jewellery Focus’ own columnist and a
specialist in jewellery sales training, with a chuckle. “I can’t see
how a woman would ever want to mention that she has a lab
created diamond as an engagement ring.”
Zell’s remarks are in response to the news of De Beers
announcing a new synthetic diamond jewellery range, to be
launched by a subsidiary called Lightbox this September. The
brand will initially launch in the US and will be available to
customers online, with stones retailing from $200 (£150) for
a quarter-carat stone to $800 (£603) for a one-carat stone.
Lightbox will be the only jewellery brand to source the lab-
grown diamonds from De Beers’ Element Six business, a
supplier of synthetic diamonds.
But why is De Beers, a company synonymous with natural
diamonds, now launching a product ‘on the other side’ of the
diamond trade, and ostensibly in competition with its usual
and historic offering? David Prager, executive vice president
of corporate affairs at De Beers, offers reassurance, saying
the group “will always be a natural diamond company”.
The reason behind this announcement, he explains, is that
the company sees “increasing consumer confusion” about
what synthetic diamonds actually are. Prager has worked
with De Beers for 12 years and is also a board member for
the Diamond Empowerment Fund, an organisation in the US
which focuses on giving opportunities to children in diamond
producing countries.
He believes consumers were being “underserved” by
laboratory grown diamonds currently available in the market,
which he says are “priced near the cost of natural diamonds”.
De Beers’ lab-grown diamonds are not priced against natural
diamonds. “They are a different product entirely,” he says, “as
natural diamonds are priced based on their rarity and therefore
their inherent value, while our synthetic diamonds are priced
against the cost of production.”
“It’s bit like having a Picasso painting,” he explains, “The
July 2018 | jewelleryfocus.co.uk
original Picasso is worth millions, it’s invaluable. You can
create a print that is pretty close and you can reproduce that
print over and over again. The original is clearly finite and
rare, its precious and therefore carries inherent value, much
like a diamond created a billion years ago. We think that it’s
not fair to the consumer to price the synthetic copy, which can
be replicated and is infinite, in the same way as a natural gem.”
Prager says his firm’s market research found consumers would
consider lab-grown diamonds for more casual occasions, but
there was no affordable offerings in the marketplace.Research
also found that, for women, lab-grown diamonds would be
“the kind of product that they would be comfortable bringing
on holiday”. “If they lose one,” he says, “it’s not a big deal - De
Beers allows you to order just one to replace it - so it’s a very
different value proposition to natural diamonds.”
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