They do not run good times for the once exclusive, powerful and milmillonariat diamond industry. The boom of “cultivated” gems has set up the market, stirring something even more important than prices: its identity. When changing the mines of Africa for China’s laboratories, the sector has seen how its image of exclusivity weakened, one of the pillars on which it settled its business decades ago. Taylor Swift’s request has served to vivify him.
From the Queen of Pop Queen no details are known, but it has been gathered by a huge diamond that some analysts already value between $ 250,000 and $ 500,000. Beyond its value, the commitment has served to revitalize the message of sophistication and luxury that so well cultivated in his day of Beers.
A ‘yes I want’ that is worth millions. Taylor Swift is much more than the pop queen. It is an authentic walking industry capable of altering the US GDP with its tour and a influencer To which, only on Instagram, more than 280 million people follow (add 32.5 on Tiktok) in search of inspiration. That is why the photograph he shared yesterday with his hand request is much more than a news for the pink press. His commitment to Travis Kelce has put the trend hunters around the world on guard, who already examine the request ring.
Beyond the jewelers and designers, the Swift fans legion or the pink press, there is a group that has probably followed the news of the request with almost the same beautification as the singer: the world diamond industry. And the reason is very simple. In addition to a deep existential crisis (perhaps the largest of its entire history) that affects both its prices and its public image, the Kelce’s ring has just put on the left ring finger of Swift reinforces the value that has made diamonds into a millmillonary business: exclusivity.
Why’s that? Because they don’t run simple times for the diamond industry. De Beers, the Titan of the Sector, the company that convinced generations of in love with a romance is only authentic if it is sealed with a Pedrusco, it is not at its best; And the diamond prices have experienced a deep fall in recent years until they are minimal that were not seen so far in centuries. Behind that deep crisis there are several factors.
There are those who explain it for the ‘prick’ of the Chinese market. Others simply point to a cultural change: we marry less and that equals less commitment and alliances rings, to which it adds that the sector already enjoyed a boom between 2021 and 2022, when the US market grew thanks to all the weddings postponed during the pandemic. However, there is another factor that greatly explains the drift of the sector in recent years, one that affects both prices and the identity of diamonds: synthetic stones.
And serious dangerous competitor. Those also known as “laboratory diamonds” are not new. Its origins can go back in the middle of the last century. However, in recent decades its elaboration has been refined so much and above all they have reached such penetration in the market that have become a serious competitor for natural diamonds. Serious and dangerous. The last ones (the natural stones) leave mines after having formed for millions of years in extreme conditions. The first (synthetic) are created in laboratories in days. And the reality is that experts do not differentiate them with the naked eye.
The result was the expected. Laboratory diamonds have gained space in jewelry stores, affecting market prices, guarding traditional companies and especially staggering the foundations on which the business was built. They compete with minted gems but can be manufactured in series in record time and a speed that there is voices that already warn of the risk of overproduction. Not just that. There are manufacturers who have decided to bet on “cultivated” diamonds when considering them more ethical.
A percentage: 20%. The result is that synthetic diamonds have made a considerable hole in the market. In a recent article The Wall Street Journal He pointed, citing the analyst Paul Zimnisky, who already represents more than the fifth of the world sales of jewelry with landing. It is not bad if one takes into account that only a few years ago, in 2016, they were less than 1%.
If we talk about commitment rings your market penetration is even greater. The web specialized wedding data shows that more than half of the commitment rings sold last year in the US included at least one laboratory diamond. Again there are many, many more than before pandemic. Growth since 2019 is estimated at about 40%.
Market quota … and prices. That panorama has been marked by a prices collapse. Both of the synthetic and the natural stones. Zimnisky estimates that since 2016 the sale Price of a diamond of a laboratory cultivated quilate has dropped about 86%. During the same period the mined stones have also lost value, although in much less value: a gem of the same size would now cost around 40% less than nine years ago. Not all studies and valuations coincide in the data, but what they do in all cases is drawing: clearly descending.
And what does Swift have to see? Swift’s ring affects the pillar on which the traditional diamond market, one of its capital values: exclusivity. From the Queen of Pop’s ring it is known that it is the exclusive design of a jewelry in New York, which looks Antique cushion cut of eight carats and a diamond Old shiny mine of historical cut rounded in the corners. It is said that only the diamond can cost between $ 250,000 and $ 500,000 and that the ring is around one million or 1.3 million dollars. The analysts of The New York Times They even believe that the jewel will mark the return of “vintage elegance.”
Returning to the essence. The pop queen is not the first to wear a great diamond in her engagement ring. Before, Zendaya, Chioma, Zoe Kravitz, Jenifer López, Lilly Collins or Georgina, who has also presumed a millionaire diamond. And long before they presumed their jewels like Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly or Audrey Hepburn. With them the diamond sector settled its message of exclusivity, the same one that now wants to value.
So much so that in the sector there are those who already advocate large marketing campaigns to influence that message or even encourage jewelers to acquire machines that allow differentiating in a matter of seconds a jewel out of a Chinese or Indian laboratory of a distant Botsuana mine. For now, it has achieved something even more effective: a chute of energy thanks to Swift’s request.
Images | Instagram and Dillon Wanner (UNSPLASH)
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