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JCK Lab-Grown Section Shows Rising Demand
Jul 10, 2019 5:12 AM
By Jennifer Heebner
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RAPAPORT... At JCK Las Vegas, lab-grown-diamond exhibitors have
mushroomed nearly as much as opinions about the stones themselves. To
accommodate growing market needs, organizers debuted the Lab-Grown Diamond
Neighborhood at the 2018 edition of the trade fair.
“There may have been exhibitors that had lab-grown in the
show in earlier years, but they weren’t grouped together in a neighborhood
until 2018,” says Sarin Bachmann, event vice president for JCK and Luxury.
“Lab-grown diamonds are a growing segment, and it became important for our
buyers to have clear delineation of the category.”
This is why the show added a 6,400-square-foot designated
section for 29 lab-grown exhibitors to display both loose stones and finished
jewelry last year. It’s also why the area increased its footprint by 40% this
year, with nearly double the number of participants.
‘They’re not going away’
Proponents of lab-created diamonds see opportunities for the
stones to share case space with mined ones, as lab-grown constitutes another
way for consumers to spend discretionary dollars on jewelry as opposed to other
product categories.
Indeed, lab-created diamonds helped fourth-generation
jeweler Pia Aiya’s family business stay afloat during the recession.
“Lab-growns came out of need but grew into something more,” says the Aiya
Designs director of operations. “They are another avenue or tool.”
Raj Vaidya, owner of six-month-old DiamSpark Lab Grown
Diamonds, agrees. “They’re not going away,” says Vaidya, whose parent company
has been in the mined-diamond industry for 25 years.
“The affordability of lab-growns has increased the public’s
awareness of them,” he adds. “And the industry is actually buying them in
large-scale quantities — like 1,000 at a time. They are not on memo.”
Price may be the biggest factor in customers’ purchasing
decisions — synthetic diamonds can cost a third of what natural ones do,
according to interviewees — while sustainability and transparent sourcing are
close behind.
Evolv, a division of longtime manufacturer Joseph Blank,
dipped its toes in the lab-grown-jewelry waters in 2016, though sales have been
slow until recently. Now the business is every bit as viable as mined diamonds.
“There’s less resistance from consumers and more from the
industry, though we continue to get gradual increases in requests for them,”
explains CEO Douglas Blank. “Our company is 100 years old, and lab-growns are
keeping me busy and our phones ringing.”
Of course, the individual purchase figures can look
disappointingly low compared to natural. “We just sold a 3.50-carat lab-grown
stone for $13,000 that would have been $30,000 in a mined diamond,” he relates.
Demand for more
Of all the pros and cons, the most compelling argument for
selling lab-created diamonds is that consumers are buying them.
For Sehal Mody, chief operations officer at GoGreen
Diamonds, the proof is in the sales. His firm — a four-year-old division of a
40-year-old natural-diamond-jewelry manufacturer — has gone from making about
two sales a month 10 years ago to getting retailer requests for entire
showcases full of both loose lab-grown diamonds and finished jewelry.
“Retailers are looking for bridal and fashion basics,” he
reports.
The biggest impetus for sales? Lightbox. Before the De Beers
lab-grown jewelry line emerged, many merchants were hesitant to embrace this
product category. Now sales are heating up, as is evident from the expanding
Lab-Grown Diamond Neighborhood at JCK. At press time, JCK Las Vegas was still
finalizing plans for the section’s further growth in 2020. Blank has already
requested a booth double the size of this year’s.
“Lightbox really opened up the market,” affirms Mody.
Fenix, another lab-grown company, used virtual reality at
its JCK booth to present the gems as a product that offered consumers a choice.
In a five-minute experience, retailers could see the growing and cutting
processes for themselves — the latter carried out at a factory in India.
“We’re not looking to pick a fight about what’s better or
not,” says brand-builder Andrea Hansen, who aided Fenix with its campaign. “But
we are well-equipped for volume, from 30 points to 3 carats and more.
Lab-growns could dominate the fashion space.”
Bigger as they go
That speculation paves the way for the inevitable question
of what’s next for synthetics. Many are saying bigger pieces of finished
jewelry, and definitely more sales — though how much more is anybody’s guess.
“The percentage of lab-grown sales may just be 2% now, but
if 2% becomes 3%, then we’ve seen a 50% jump,” says Kinish Shah, owner of
Splendid Lab Diamonds. A 27-year veteran of natural diamonds under Surediam,
his company began working in synthetics three years ago.
Of course, proponents of both types of diamonds exist and
have “diamond dreams,” according to Hiren Goti, CEO of newcomer SkyLabDiamond. He says he doesn’t
understand the negative opinions about lab-grown. “I don’t know why people are
so worried. You can’t stop shoppers from buying what they want. It’s their
choice.”
This article was first published in the July 2019 issue of Rapaport Magazine.
Image: Lab-grown-diamond companies’ booths at the 2019 JCK Las Vegas show. (JCK Events)
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Tags:
JCK, JCK Las Vegas, Jennifer Heebner, lab-grown, lab-grown diamonds, Rapaport News, Synthetic diamonds, Synthetics, Trade Shows
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