“With colored diamonds, it’s not about what’s beautiful to everyone else. It’s about what speaks to me and my personal sense of style.”
That’s what Randi Molofsky has to say, the author of “A Girl’s Guide to Buying Diamonds: How to Choose, Evaluate, and Buy the Diamond You Want.”
According the New York Times article:
Brown diamonds, better known by their more effervescent name, champagnes, were first offered to the trade in the early 1990s after a big discovery at the Argyle mine in Western Australia. Since they are small, marked with internal flaws and plentiful, they had only been used for industrial purposes. Retailers, the gatekeepers of the jewelry industry, disdained them.Years of training by the Gemological Institute of America had instilled in retailers the notion “that white was better,” said Elizabeth L. Chatelain, president of MVI Marketing, based in Paso Robles, California, which helped Argyle introduce champagne diamonds to the American market. “To retailers, these were off-color goods.”
Consigned to mass merchants, who sold them on the cheap, browns languished in the low-end market until the turn of the millennium, when opinions began to change and designers warmed to the idea of jewelry with the refractive brilliance of a diamond and the singular palette of a colored stone.
There was a bonus: At prices 15 percent to 25 percent lower than their white counterparts, champagnes were a bargain.
“It gave designers a way to do quite exuberant and elaborate diamond designs at a lower cost,” said Sally C. Morrison, director of the Diamond Information Center. “There are so many shades to create nuance and texture using browns. It’s a way to paint in color.”
What we can note from this article is that colored diamonds are seeing a well-deserved resurgence. They are affordable and reflect a personal style, plus the variations on what to do with a fancy-colored gem are endless.
“It’s been an interesting journey,” Mr. Le Vian said. “We’ve taken stones considered low quality and made them attractive to consumers.”
Take a look at our Gemesis page for some of our best and brightest:
Style GM1006
Yellow Cushion Cut Gemesis Ring With Pave’ White Diamonds
1.38ct deep fancy yellow cushion cut Gemesis diamond of VS clarity set into 18kt white gold single shank mounting accentuated with approximately .90ct t.w. round brilliant cut pave’ set diamonds.
Metal: 18kt White Gold
Stone Size: .84ct
Ring Size: 5 – 8