Historically, lab grown diamonds have not threatened the traditional, earth grown diamond industry. Since their inception, lab grown diamonds have been viewed as a fake or lesser version of the more real and valuable earth grown diamonds. This sentiment is changing, however, as technology is quickly transforming the lab grown diamond industry into a real competitor of its earth grown counterpart. As new technology enables scientists and entrepreneurs to grow diamonds that truly rival even the largest and rarest earth grown diamonds, many in the industry are questioning their long-held beliefs about gemology and the diamond business in general. Specifically, a growing cohort of experts has critiqued the historical influence of diamond behemoth De Beers.
De Beers, the largest player in the industry, controls many of the most important diamond mines. As a result, De Beers has cornered the diamond exploitation, diamond retail, diamond trading, and industrial diamond manufacturing markets. Leveraging its history in the industry, clever branding, and diamond mine market share, De Beers has created a monopoly on some of the rarest and most expensive diamonds in the world. As De Beers owns mines that exclusively produce highly coveted, fancy colored diamonds such as the yellow & pink diamonds mined in Australia or the blue diamonds mined in Africa, it has complete control over prices as it controls the supply.
Beyond creating a monopoly on rare diamonds, De Beers helped create the market for elaborately expensive diamond jewelry by inventing the diamond engagement ring through clever marketing. De Beers strategically marketed the diamond engagement ring with the phrase, “a diamond is forever," arguably the most famous slogan of all time. De Beers effectively manipulated the rising middle class in America to spend a disproportionate amount of their earnings, 2 to 3 months' salary, on a single piece of jewelry. As Aja Raden, famous jewelry and engagement ring designer, puts it in the popular Showtime documentary Nothing Lasts Forever, "people want things because they have been told to want them and De Beers has convinced hundreds of millions of people over almost a century so effectively that they want a diamond. And the way they did it was by inventing a product. They called it an engagement ring that would hold these little white diamonds, which were the least desirable kind, but before that nobody really wanted them and this was just a way to get the new emerging middle class of America after World War 2 to buy them.”
With these competitive advantages, De Beers hasn’t historically concerned itself with the lab grown diamond industry. The big money in the diamond business is reserved for very rare and large diamonds ranging from 15-20 carrots that go for millions at auctions. Compared to the 5 carat diamonds that lab grown diamond brands have been able to produce over the years, there is no competition. Thanks to innovations in technology, however, diamond entrepreneurs are now able to create fancy colored lab grown diamonds that can go up to 20, even 30 carats at a fraction of the cost earth mined diamonds that size. Just as technology helped Netflix drive Blockbuster out of business and helped Uber disrupt the transportation industry — increasing quality while reducing costs — technology is on the verge of fundamentally altering the diamond business as we know it.
Avi Aranbaiev, Founder and CEO of Liori Diamonds, is one of the strongest advocates for the lab grown diamonds industry. Aranbaiev sees the writing on the wall. Boldly, the Founder and CEO of Liori Diamonds predicts that De Beers will ultimately go bankrupt in the next few years. Simply put, Aranbaiev believes that De Beers will not be able to compete with the quality nor the price point of the large, unique, fancy-colored diamonds grown in the lab with new, cutting-edge technology. There is certainly precedent for a highly coveted material losing its value in a matter of years. Aluminum used to be so valuable that the top of the Washington Monument was made of the material until someone invented a process to mass-produce it and it ultimately became a common household item. The same can be said about flatscreen TVs, the price of which has dropped drastically in the last decade due to advancements in technology.
Understanding that the diamond industry is not immune to the disruptive power of technology, Aranbaiev believes that lab grown diamond jewelry is destined to drive earth mined diamond jewelry out of the market. Diamond experts and scientists agree that from a gemological point of view, there is no difference between an earth-mined diamond and a lab grown diamond other than any romantic sentiments associated with the former over the latter. Raden calls attention to this lack of difference in the Showtime documentary by pointing out that somewhere between 5-20% of the small earth mined diamond market has already been infiltrated by lab grown diamonds unbeknownst to the consumers. Translation, even the most sophisticated consumers cannot tell the difference.
This begs the question, if lab grown diamonds are the same as earth mined diamonds from a scientific perspective and they can be created, and therefore sold, at a lower price point, are there any brands out there truly leveraging this technology to create a product that actually rivals the prestige and beauty of De Beers's diamond jewelry? This is the raison d’etre of Avi Aranbaiev and the Liori Diamonds team.
While Liori Diamonds is a comprehensive diamond retailer with an inventory of diamonds and jewelry of all styles, the brand specializes in highly unique and large lab grown diamond engagement rings. Liori Diamonds has an unparalleled selection of 10, 15, and 20 carat lab grown diamond jewelry in a variety of fancy colors from yellow to pink to blue and more. Additionally, Liori's diamonds are GIA certified. The GIA, Gemological Institute of America, certification is the most respected certification in the industry as the GIA is considered the world's leading geological research institute. The GIA is an impartial judge, testing diamonds and grading them based on the 4 C's: carat weight, cut, color, and clarity. With access to the highest quality, largest, and most unique lab grown diamonds, compared to other lab grown diamond brands, it is not surprising that Liori has quickly cornered the market on luxury lab grown diamond engagement rings. It is companies like Liori Diamonds that are not only pushing the industry forward by creating high-quality luxury products at a more affordable price to the consumer, but are also slowly driving the legacy players averse to change (like De Beers) out of business.
Now, consumers can save 80% on the cost of a lab grown diamond engagement ring that is the same if not better quality than an earth mined diamond engagement ring. Thanks to advancements in technology, the lab grown diamond industry is currently in the perfect sweet spot of price points, carat sizes, and color options. Aranbaiev believes it is only a matter of time before the consumer market realizes what many industry insiders already know, lab grown diamonds are the superior choice to earth mined diamonds across the board. Especially as companies such as Liori Diamonds remain committed to producing unique luxury lab grown diamond jewelry, consumers have plenty of high-quality options to choose from.
To learn more about Liori Diamonds and their industry-disrupting lab grown diamond jewelry, visit their website here.
