Elevating the Lab Grown Diamond: A Critical Review of the Contemporary Jewellery Industry

Abstract

DeBeers' iconic 1938 “A Diamond Is Forever” campaign associated diamonds with everlasting love and singlehandedly constructed the value of, and public demand for, these gemstones (Epstein, 1982). This event is known as the “diamond invention” (Epstein, 1982). However, the purity of natural diamonds was challenged in the 1990s because of rising concern about blood diamonds (Siegel, 2009). In the same era, gem-quality lab-grown diamonds entered the market though they remained largely unknown (Kitawaki, Abduriyim, Kawano, & Okano, 2010). Recently, awareness of synthetics has increased given millennial values (IGDA, 2019). Today more jewellery companies have adopted lab-grown diamonds, many of which maintain the romantic associations from the diamond invention despite changes in social values over the last eighty-one years. The industry requires differentiation of natural and lab-grown diamond sectors for several reasons including to uphold diamond value (e.g. Sherman, 2014; Siegel, 2009a; Whiteley, 2016). Not much scholarship exists on the current state of the lab-grown diamond industry. Thus, this study delves into the debate between both sectors to devise a strategy for lab- grown diamonds, considering the current social climate.