Tag grown diamond

Ahead of the holiday season, Pandora builds on its existing lab-grown diamond jewelry, debuting a trio of new collections that combine high-quality craftsmanship with environmentally-conscious design.

In an effort to “democratize” diamonds through ethical means, the latest jewelry pieces feature lab-grown stones with the same color, cut, clarity and carat as their mined counterparts, making them more affordable whilst also having a lower carbon footprint. Crafted using 100% renewable energy with 100% recycled silver and gold, Pandora presents three distinctive designs that shape the individual collections, named Nova, Era and Talisman.

Pandora Nova aims to showcase the unending sparkle of lab-grown diamonds. With each piece taking on a four-prong setting, the round and princess-cut stones are able to capture and refract surrounding light from each angle. This design is replicated in chains, studs and a 14 carat gold ring. Whilst Nova takes on a contemporary look, the Pandora Era collection subscribes to a classic feel featuring a minimalistic bezel setting. An understated array of single drop pendants as well as three-set stones arrive in a mix of 14 carat white gold and yellow gold.

Making a statement amongst the line-up is the Pandora Talisman collection. Comprised of five pendant designs – including a heart, star, moon and horseshoe – the respective pieces bring a luxurious take on Pandora charms with a touch of individuality running through each piece. The pendants come with matching chains or can be bought individually, allowing wearers to mix and match on bracelets or necklaces.

The new collection makes its debut in the brand’s latest campaign titled “Diamonds for All.” Exploring the way lab-grown diamonds break traditions through all-round wearability, the campaign sees Pamela Anderson, Justina Miles and other public figures share how these jewelry pieces bring elegance as well as

For people who want to get married, the diamond engagement ring is a tale as old as time—and advertisers and media companies alike make the rather expensive tradition seem inescapable. The slogans from South African diamond behemoth De Beers speak for themselves:

“A diamond is forever.”

“Is two months’ salary too much to spend for something that lasts forever?”

More From Popular Mechanics

 

“Show her you’ll love her for the next thousand years.”

On top of it, the marketplace for diamonds can be really confusing. There are grades of clarity and color that lead to an overall quality rating. And, of course, diamonds are very expensive. The International Gem Society reports that the average amount spent on a diamond ring in 2021 was $5,000. (At the iconic jewelry store Tiffany’s, a budget of $5,000 barely gets you into the diamonds, let alone the showy single diamonds people prefer on engagement rings.)

All of these reasons have driven consumer interest in lab-grown diamonds, and in lab-grown diamond engagement rings in particular. So, we spoke to an expert from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) to learn everything you need to know about lab-grown diamonds—the production methods, the colors, the intangibles, and more. They say lab-grown diamond rings can cost up to 20 percent less than natural diamonds, which would knock that $5,000 ring down to $4,000. It’s not a Black Friday doorbuster percentage of discount, but that’s a lot of money to save.

Lab-Grown Diamonds vs. Natural Diamonds

Sally Magaña is a research scientist and the manager of diamond identification for the Carlsbad, California-based GIA, which now has locations around the world; the GIA creates and upholds standards and education for jewelers around the world. Today, one of its key concerns is telling apart lab-grown diamonds from natural diamonds,

With the global jewelry market in retreat, Pandora just delivered a solid second-quarter performance, with organic revenues up 5% to $850 million and like-for-like (LFL) revenues advancing 2%. This brought first-half revenues up 3.5% over the previous year to $1.7 billion.

Having expected challenges in fiscal 2023, Pandora initially guided on a -2% to +3% change in revenues this year, but given its strong performance so far, it raised guidance to between +2% to +5% by year-end.

“We outperformed the market,” CEO Alexander Lacik shared with me after the earnings call. “There’s a lot of uncertainty out there, with the Ukraine war, rising interest rates and consumer sentiment dropping like a stone. It’s a fact that people have less disposable income to go around, so against those macros, we showed sequential improvement.”

And Lacik is counting on that sequential improvement to pick up pace through the rest of the year after it drops three new collections of lab-grown diamond jewelry into the U.S., Canada, Australia and U.K. markets, with Mexico and Brazil to follow in time for holiday.

The new range includes rings, earrings, bracelets and necklaces and for the first time, it is presenting lab-grown diamonds in its flagship charms, what the company calls the “universe that is at the heart of Pandora.”

“We have over 600 million customers coming to our stores and website every year and we know the vast majority of them are very interested in buying a diamond but can’t afford mined diamonds. That’s where Pandora

All right, I have a tiny confession to make: I have not always been the classic solitaire ring’s biggest fan. Not for lack of appreciation (I am borderline obsessed with gemology) but rather because my personal style has tended to steer me toward non-traditional silhouettes and styles—my engagement ring is a signet, if that helps paint a picture.

At its core, each piece of jewelry is wildly individual. The meaning assigned to a gemstone is personal and unique, as is the way it’s styled into your wardrobe. This rang especially true when a certain ring entered my orbit and completely changed my POV on the solitare style. This, my friends, was not just any ordinary solitaire style, it was Pandora’s Nova 14k White Gold 1.00 Carat TW Lab-Grown Diamond Ring.

I’ll get into the various bits and bobs that make this luxe ring so amaze in a moment, but on a more general note I was delighted and surprised by how easy it was to incorporate into my daily rotation. The moment I slipped this round brilliant lab-grown diamond onto my right hand, I was shook by how good it made me feel. Confident! Chic! Ready to hail a cab! It was—not to be totally cliché—love at first wear. Lately I’ve been layering it with a slim hammered-gold band, which feels aligned with my vibe (we love a mixed-metals moment).

So whether you’re in the market for an engagement style or you find joy in sporting a lab-grown diamond ring for ~any ole day~, keep scrolling for the details on this gorge forever jewelry.

How do many lab-grown diamond fine and high jewelry companies that claim to be environmentally sustainable provide evidence to back such claims for their designs?

New York-based Grown Brilliance does all of the above, and more. Embodying a new wave of beautifully designed and evidence-based sustainable lab-grown diamond jewelry, this brand produces six stylistically diverse collections a year. While these are classics with an artistic twist, they are also of notably high quality: 95% of Grown Brilliance diamonds are I+ in color, and VS2 or higher in clarity. Led by founder and Creative Director Akshie Jhaveri, the brand’s supply chain, including packaging, is carbon-neutral, thanks to offsets purchased from the United Nations carbon off-set platform. In a transparent move, Jhaveri supplied this writer with sustainable bona fides including proof-of-sustainability certificates for her brand’s diamond growing, cutting, polishing and jewelry manufacturing facilities. As of this writing, Grown Brilliance is being audited by the sustainable industry standard organization SCS Global Services. The goal is to obtain SCS certification as a carbon-neutral or climate-neutral jewelry business.

Equally of note, Grown Brilliance is pioneering the e-tailing of sustainable lab-grown diamond jewelry by enabling customers to have their custom designs rapidly created with artistry and technical precision — at prices that compare exceedingly well to those of their competition As Jhaveri explained, “Our website’s Truly Custom tool allows people to design their unique lab-grown diamond ring, which we produce within 14 days, all without charging for this bespoke service.” (Grown Brilliance also offers Truly Custom necklace, earring and bracelet design options.) Too discreet to mention

In a move sure to further disrupt the jewelry industry already disrupted by consumers’ rapid turn to lab-grown diamonds, De Beers has introduced engagement rings under its lab-grown jewelry brand Lightbox, a category it once reserved exclusively for its Forevermark natural, mined diamonds. Now it offers a selection of 16 lab-grown diamond engagement rings priced from $500 to $5,000.

While the company positions the move as a limited market test, it is groundbreaking for De Beers, whose fortunes have been inextricably linked to natural diamond futures.

De Beers is the world’s leading natural diamond company, with its reach into diamond exploration, mining, grading, marketing and retail. It singlehandedly made the diamond engagement ring the symbol of everlasting love in its famed 1947 “A diamond is forever” ad campaign.

Into The Lab-Grown Diamond Fray

When De Beers first dipped its toes into the lab-grown jewelry market with Lightbox in 2018, it was positioned as fun, pretty, affordable fashion jewelry that “may not be forever, but is perfect for right now,” said Bruce Cleaver, then-CEO De Beers Group and now its co-chairman.

At the time, LGD were reserved for earrings and necklaces set with an emphasis on colored stones, but also available in clear-white diamonds.

Initial prices were set at $800 per carat, exclusive of the setting, and the company has held the line on per-carat price since then. However, it has since added a finest grade above its standard offering, priced at $1,500 per carat for LGD stones of finer cut and clarity with the clearest color rating.

It stepped deeper into the bridal waters

It appears that De Beers has spotted the writing on the wall in an increasingly crowded lab-grown diamond market.

The diamond behemoth has begun testing engagement rings under its lab-grown subsidiary, Lightbox, after years of avoiding the category. It is understood that the company had long tried to maintain natural diamonds’ position as engagement ring stones, while attempting to silo lab-grown diamonds as fashion jewelry.

More from WWD

De Beers established Lightbox in 2018 in order to help steer the lab-grown diamond narrative. It set a strict per-carat pricing model for the stones (pro-rated at $800 per carat, regardless of the stone’s size or color) in an attempt to lead the industry’s treatment of lab diamonds.

As newly instated Lightbox chief executive officer Antoine Borde told WWD earlier this month, the company is focused on designs intended for self-purchasing and personal expression.

“We are pursuing the positioning of the brand around fashion, freedom, fun — it’s a good dynamic that we are seeing this happen,” Borde said.

Since its launch Lightbox had sold loose lab-grown stones that could be set as engagement rings, but the company had never sold ready-made engagement rings as part of its own distribution.

Now as more and more players enter the lab-grown arena, it appears that De Beers and Lightbox had little choice but to test the engagement category.

The company’s website has launched a limited series of 16 solitaire rings — all priced at $5,000 or less, with the average hovering around $2,500. They are offered with stones from one to two carats and come in settings that range from very simple gold bands to more elaborate halo styles, set alongside smaller pavé lab-grown stones.

Borde said in a statement: “As part of Lightbox’s promise to bring transparency to lab-grown diamonds,

29

Blood diamonds are a dark reality in the diamond industry. Blood diamonds, or conflict diamonds, are mined in war-torn countries, where the profits from their sale are often used to finance violent conflicts and perpetrate human rights abuses. Workers can be subjected to dangerous and inhumane working conditions as forced and child labor is common in these areas. In recent years, the diamond industry has taken steps to address this issue with the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, which was created to prevent the trade in these problematic gems. However, critics have argued that it is not effective and has failed to stop the flow of blood diamonds.

Consumers, however, are more informed and conscious than ever about the social and ethical impact of their purchasing decisions. This has led to a consumer revolution in many industries. In the jewelry industry, many consumers are using their dollars to support a relatively new, more ethical, alternative: lab-grown diamonds. Leading the charge in this consumer shift is Liori Diamonds, an innovative New York based jewelry company.

As opposed to being mined from the Earth, lab-grown diamonds are produced in a laboratory environment, as the name suggests, using a process that simulates the intense heat and pressure naturally occurring within the Earth’s crust. These diamonds have the same chemical composition, crystal structure, and physical properties as their earth-mined counterparts, but are often less expensive due to the lower costs of production.

(courtesy)

As the lab-grown diamond industry continues to evolve, Liori Diamonds has emerged as a preeminent jeweler in the market. With a wide selection of high-quality lab-grown diamonds and a commitment to excellent customer service, Liori Diamonds is quickly becoming the go-to destination for those seeking exciting, ethical, and affordable diamond jewelry. With an industry-leading selection of

Looks like lab-grown diamonds are shedding their stigma.

More than a third of engagement rings with a center stone sold last year were made in a lab, according to a survey from the Knot cited in The Wall Street Journal on Friday. On top of that, some jewelers—from legacy houses to upstart brands—are focusing their efforts on man-made stones.

More from Robb Report

“Consumers are smart,” said Benny Landa, the founder of the lab-grown-diamond company Lusix. “When they see a two carat lab-grown diamond for not much more than a one carat mined diamond, it’s a no-brainer.” (Currently, a one-carat lab-grown diamond retails for about $1,430, while a traditional mined gem of the same size sells for $5,635.)

Lusix has teamed up with brands such as the LVMH-owned TAG Heuer, which used the company’s diamonds in its Carrera Plasma watch. The crown is made of one whole diamond, while the rest of the timepiece is encrusted with stones of different shapes. Doing the same with mined stones would have been wasteful, given the cutting and shaping that would have needed to go into the project, according to the company. Comparatively, the lab-grown diamonds could be created in the exact shape required.

TAG Heuer isn’t the only luxury brand getting into the man-made game. Both Gucci and Breitling have incorporated such stones into their accessories; the latter of which has even said all of its watches will use only lab-grown diamonds by next year. In 2022, the Swiss watchmaker debuted its first timepiece using man-made stones, the Super Chronomat 38 Origins.

Not all legacy jewelers are on board with the transition, though. At this year’s Watches and Wonders, the CEO of Cartier stood by traditional diamonds, at least

“Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links.”

We’ll be the first to admit there’s something undeniably special about natural diamonds (after all, they truly are a girl’s best friend). But if you’re looking to get comparable sparkle out of your jewelry while saving a good chunk of money, you may want to go the lab grown diamond route.

Lab grown diamonds, which have surged in popularity in recent years, can be thousands of dollars cheaper than their natural counterparts—essentially since they’re considered “less rare.” Yet unlike simulated diamonds made from moissanite or cubic zirconia, lab grown diamonds are, indeed, very much real.

“Lab-grown diamonds are exactly the same on the molecular level as mined diamonds,” explains Meg Strachan, founder and CEO of emerging lab-grown diamond brand Dorsey. “Diamonds deemed ‘rare’ in mined terms can be created in lab-grown form that are just as beautiful as their counterparts and will cost much less. The ability to create diamonds and gemstones in the laboratory also means any color, cut, and clarity can be achieved,” she adds.

Adding to their appeal, lab grown diamonds may be a more ethical alternative to mined diamonds—an industry that’s notoriously been linked to the use of child labor and fueling conflict in war-torn areas. And thanks to innovations in technology, many brands making lab grown diamonds are doing better for the planet by minimizing or entirely eliminating their carbon emissions.

With all this in mind, we took it upon ourselves to curate a list of the best places to buy lab grown diamond jewelry in 2023. From gorgeous engagement rings in all shapes and sizes to an array of timeless baubles, these brands have tons of