To all the dealers trashing Lab Diamonds

[Chelsea Palmer]

Well, the difference here is, if natural diamonds were 50 times cheaper than lab diamonds; I’d still buy naturals; and if they’re 50 times more expensive, I’d still buy naturals. My reasoning is as follows - the creation of that specific natural stone under the earth happened essentially by “happy accident”, with the specific inclusions and colour determined by the specific trace elements in the area, in conditions that had to persist over millions of years. There is something special to me in something that isn’t created by mechanical precision. It’s totally fine if that’s something you don’t care about, but also, if I want to pay a huge amount of money for it compared to what you paid, that’s my prerogative. And it doesn’t make my decision wrong.

Let me put it this way - I am a collector of Indian textiles (I love traditional fabrics). Traditionally, these are woven and/or embroidered by hand. There is something that is so so beautiful to me about how they are a labour of love, that many people have put their time and heart and soul into creating this piece of clothing. Occasionally they can even have tiny almost imperceptible imperfections which actually make them more beautiful to my eyes.

You can also get machine made fabric, at a fraction of the cost. They may be made of similar raw materials, it’s just a machine that wove or embroidered it, at a fraction of the price. It might also be beautiful in its own right, to many people it would be indistinguishable. I don’t begrudge anyone for buying it. But I don’t really care to own it. The history, the romance of it, its kind of lost for me.

On the flip side there’s some things I don’t care about. I don’t care about cars. They’re just a method of transportation for me. I just want it to have comfortable seats and airbags in case I get into an accident. I don’t fully understand why people pay huge amounts of money, sometimes for pretty much the same spec, because of which car company made it. Or why they want to optimise a spec they’re never going to use (who cares how fast it can theoretically go when you live in a place with speed limits?) but they are enthusiastic about cars. Perhaps the heritage of the brand that made the car matters to them. Perhaps the bragging rights. It’s fine - it’s their life.

Someone else not making the choice you would about labs doesn’t devalue your choice or theirs.

If someone says they prefer an earth diamond because it took millions of years to rise to the surface in order to be mined, OK. Of course it’s their prerogative. That was never in question. It just seems that a lot of people consider lab grown diamonds to not be diamonds. The fact of matter is, whether grown in a lab or mined from the Earth, a diamond is a diamond is a diamond. That was the part I was trying to understand. Why people would consider a diamond, regardless of the source, not to be a diamond.