Lab-Made Diamonds Made up Over a Third of Engagement Rings Bought Last Year

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.

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“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.)

Tag Heuer Carrera Plasma

Tag Heuer Carrera Plasma

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.

Breitling’s Super Chronomat 38 Origins

Breitling’s 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

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Here’s What the Future of Jewelry Promises

Diamonds are forever—but that doesn’t mean you have to be stuck in the past. In fact, the future of jewelry is arguably more exciting than at any other time in history.

At Robb Report’s House of Robb at South by Southwest, our watch and jewelry editor, Paige Reddinger, spoke with editor in chief Paul Croughton about what’s happening in the world of jewelry, from the use of futuristic materials to the involvement of buyers in the jewelry-making process. The TL;DR? It’s definitely not just your mother’s tennis bracelet anymore.

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Some of the biggest innovations are happening with the materials jewelers are using to craft their pieces. Stones are stones, but thanks to technological advances, makers now can move beyond diamonds, rubies and sapphires. Boucheron, one of Paris’s oldest jewelry houses, has even turned to NASA-grade materials in some of its newer pieces. Reddinger talked about the brand’s use of Aerogel, which was previously used to capture stardust and insulate the Mars Rover Unit. After 857 hours of work, it’s now seen in Boucheron’s Goutte de Ciel necklace, replacing the stone that would normally sit in the center of the piece.

Boucheron Goutte de Ciel (Taste of the Sky) Aerogel Necklace

Boucheron Goutte de Ciel (Taste of the Sky) Aerogel Necklace

While work like that is possible at a large jeweler such as Boucheron, private jewelers are also changing the industry’s landscape, by making personal pieces that a bigger company wouldn’t necessarily have the time to focus on. These smaller jewelers make about eight to 10 pieces a year for VVIP clients, Reddinger said, allowing them to be even more “creatively innovative.” For example, the jeweler Emmanuel Tarpin had a client who inherited his mother’s classic stones. Rather than just resetting them in the traditional way, Tarpin put them in a thin titanium bracelet, with

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