Daniel Nyfeler‘s Key Points • In a market where perfection can be endlessly replicated, the traditional appeal of natural diamonds has been minimised. • Attempts to challenge, regulate, and stigmatise lab-created diamonds have not stopped the shift in consumer demand. • Inclusions lend individuality and charm while contributing to a diamond’s story and must be embraced in marketing. |
The development of the 4C grading system
for colourless diamonds has been instrumental in facilitating communication about diamond quality around the world.
Over time, however, this system did more than define value - it accelerated commoditisation.
The entire narrative of a diamond’s worth became reduced to measurable quality parameters. A simple “1ct D/IF 3Ex” describes a diamond exhaustively, sufficient to close a transaction at any level, including with the final customer.
Quality and perfection, seasoned with the notion of rarity, have long been the story the diamond industry told its clients, and it worked for decades. The historic monopoly, and later oligopoly, of diamond producers showed little interest in making provenance part of the marketing message.
External disruptions, such as the film ‘Blood Diamond’ (2006), prompted industry initiatives such as the Kimberley Process; however, they failed to inspire a deeper rethinking of the diamond narrative.
Diamonds continued to be presented as the epitome of flawless perfection.
Now, with the advent of industrial-scale production of lab-created diamonds, the very same material is available in unlimited quantities, in top quality, and at a fraction of the price.
In a market where perfection can be endlessly replicated, the old tale of diamond perfection has lost its sparkle.
Reaction of the natural diamond industry
The immediate response of the natural diamond industry was, and largely still is, to stress the differences between natural and lab-created stones, highlighting the shortcomings of the new competition.
Emphasising the relative rarity of the natural product is legitimate, and challenging misleading claims about the environmental or ethical advantages of lab-created diamonds is both justified and necessary.
However, this can also be read as a deflection from its own shortcomings, in particular the persistent intransparency of the natural diamond supply chain, and the industry’s inability or unwillingness to disclose precise provenance.
In other consumer sectors, such as food, detailed information about source, provenance, energy consumption, and CO2 footprint is often available, verified by third parties and accompanied by trusted labels.
When purchasing a diamond, by contrast, one can expect little: provenance data are either absent, patchy, or based on self-declaration.
Faced with increasing competition, emotions within the natural diamond industry understandably run high. Yet attempts to challenge, regulate, or sometimes even stigmatise lab-created diamonds have not stopped the shift in consumer demand.
The advantages of the lab-created product are simply too convincing: a material identical to the natural one, combined with perfection, endless availability, and low price. It seems that the old diamond narrative, built on perfection, rarity and eternal value, has reached its end.
The gem lab’s perspective
Gem labs, as service providers to the trade, ideally maintain an agnostic stance toward natural and lab-created diamonds. Our role is to test material the client considers valuable enough to warrant independent verification of its identity, authenticity, origin (wherever determinable), and potential treatments.
From a materials science perspective, both natural and lab-created diamonds are — quite simply — diamonds. One is a natural product with limited supply; the other, an industrial product with virtually limitless production capacity.
Both deserve accurate identification and transparent disclosure of their provenance, which are core responsibilities of gem labs and a foundation of consumer confidence.
Another lively debate concerns the description of material properties.
The 4Cs have established themselves as the universal language of diamond quality, understood worldwide. These parameters describe the quality of the material, they do not directly assess rarity, but only correlate with it.
Hence, it is entirely reasonable to apply the same system to lab-created diamonds.
To illustrate, consider an analogy from another field where synthetic alternatives are emerging. Soon, grocery stores will offer synthetic meat, such as meat grown from cell cultures in a controlled lab environment rather than derived from living animals.
As a consumer, I want such products clearly labelled as synthetic, yet described using the same metrics as traditional, animal-based meat: weight, nutritional value, fat and protein content, all described in terms equally applied to both.
Lessons from colour gemstones
The diamond industry might take a valuable lesson from its smaller sibling, the colour gemstone sector. Here, synthetic competition has existed for over a century: synthetic rubies, sapphires, emeralds, spinels, and others are available in perfect qualities for a fraction of the price.
Yet synthetics have remained a niche product.
Perhaps this resilience lies in the narrative of colour gemstones.
These gemstones have always been tied to provenance: the deep green of Colombian emeralds, the inner glow of Burmese rubies caused by UV fluorescence and subtle silk, or the soft, velvety blue of Kashmir sapphires, created by microscopic particles scattering the light.
These visual traits are inseparable from their sources, and those origins - Colombia, Burma, Kashmir - have themselves become brands commanding premium prices.
Perhaps the most interesting point of all is that the most valuable rubies, sapphires, and emeralds often do not meet the highest clarity and transparency standards.
Inclusions, ‘flaws’ in diamond terminology, can enhance the stone’s character and colour, producing softness, glow, or intensity that connoisseurs prize.
For many decades, the gemstone trade has regarded inclusions as hallmarks of natural growth, witnesses of geological history, offering clues for determining origin and distinguishing natural from synthetic.
To the layperson, inclusions lend individuality and aesthetic charm while contributing to the storytelling of a gemstone’s country of origin and its culture and people.
A buyer of a colour gemstone acquires more than a red, blue, or green sparkle. Through its inclusions and what they reveal, the gemstone possesses uniqueness, even personality — a tangible link to the mine, the landscape, and the history from which it emerged.
When looking at diamonds, gemstones, or humans, everyone admires perfection. But over time, perfection becomes dull.
After all, we fall in love with the minor imperfections — the inclusions — that give character and individuality, and ultimately instil a subjective perception of beauty in humans, diamonds, and gemstones.
THE GREAT DIAMOND DEBATE III
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