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Will the watch industry say I do to lab-grown diamonds?

As more watch brands embrace the alchemy of diamonds grown in a laboratory, Robin Swithinbank says the value and romance deficit in a man-made gemstone will have luxury buyers digging in the dirt.

As more watch brands embrace the alchemy of diamonds grown in a laboratory, Robin Swithinbank says the value and romance deficit in a man-made gemstone will have luxury buyers digging in the dirt.

If you’ve come across the illusory truth effect, you’ll recognise the theory that the more familiar we become with a false idea the less likely we are to believe it’s wrong.

Framed in 1977 by researchers at the Villanova and Temple Universities in Pennsylvania, it suggests that even if, at first, we are inclined to see a falsehood in a statement, upon hearing it several more times, we will steadily become inured to it.

How susceptible we are depends on our gullible gene. Actually, it doesn’t. But you get the point.

Over the years, advertisers, news outlets, would-be saviours and, of course, arch-propagandists have leveraged the illusory truth effect.

Recent history throws up numerous alarming examples involving Vote Leave Brexit buses making grand money-saving promises, a run on Washington’s Capitol Building and that naughty Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes.

In watches, to come to a point, the stakes always seem lower and, of course, they are. But they’re no less real.

The Swiss Made stamp is riddled with illusion: as even low-level horological aficionados will know, a mere 60 per cent of a watch’s value has to be added inside Helvetian borders before it can carry those two precious words.

That may only cover labour.

What this means for lab-grown diamonds, which are creeping into the watch industry via Breitling and TAG Heuer, is as yet unclear.

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Breitling’s Chronomat is the first collection to use lab-grown diamonds.

Some of what’s being said will no doubt be true. Some of it may only appear to be true. And still more of it we may simply want to be true.

If I might explain. Despite being grown by a machine, lab-grown diamonds are, so far as I’ve been able to determine, anatomically indistinguishable from Earth-mined diamonds of the same grade.

Spawned over a period of a few weeks (instead of billions of years) in a rage of heat, pressure, gas and carbon, a lab-grown diamond looks, feels and who knows, might even smell the same as a natural stone.

Science is quite something, isn’t it?

But after that, the story gets a bit murkier. Lab-grown diamonds, some claim, are more traceable and more environmentally friendly than their natural equivalents, which sounds right because these are the sort of things the luxury-buying members of the Greta generation really want to hear.

And it can be true, too.

But traceability only works if every party in the supply chain is playing ball.

Organisations like SourceMap, which is employed by Breitling to document the trail left by the diamonds it’s now introducing into its watches, do indeed appear to illuminate the path of some lab-grown diamonds.

But not every brand selling products with man-made gems is so transparent.

Are lab-grown diamonds good for the planet?

And are they better for the environment?

Again, that rather depends. The energy required to produce lab-grown diamonds is huge so if they’re produced in a factory that runs on coal, well, no, they won’t be.

But if the factory runs on nuclear energy, or even solar as some Indian manufacturers are beginning to, then yes, the impact will be lowered.

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Innovator BA111OD’s chapter 2.4 watch is its first to use lab-grown diamonds.

Organisations such as SCS Global, another Breitling supplier incidentally, are handing out certificates to back up such claims, too.

 

Even so. As consumers, we’re left to rely on the integrity of these organisations, who, we can’t forget, are dependent on these revenue streams for their own survival. Where there’s money, there’s doubt.

Similarly, Pandora, one of the world’s largest users of lab-grown diamonds, put out a report that said a cut and polished, one-carat, lab-grown diamond had a total carbon footprint of 8.17kg CO2e (the common unit for measuring greenhouse gases).

The French jeweller Courbet went higher, saying 25kg CO2e for the same product. That’s a big difference.

But then it might be a lot lower than what’s coughed up by the traditional route. Last year, Imperial College London reported that the median carbon footprint of a one-carat mined diamond was an atmosphere clogging 108.5kg CO2e.

Romancing the factory-made stone

And then the illusion deepens further still. At least, it does in luxury. Because upscale brands adopting a lab-grown diamond strategy have a Red Sea to cross before they convince consumers that what they’re buying carries the material and romantic heft to merit prices that compare with those of watches set with real diamonds.

Let’s deal with each of those individually.

Materially, we’ve established that the properties of a lab-grown diamond match up.

But in value terms, lab-grown diamonds fall short. Way short.

One recent report suggests wholesale prices for lab-grown diamonds are 14 per cent of those for natural diamonds.

Prices were tumbling fast as manufacturing processes became more efficient, but that was before the energy crisis bit.

Still, in all probability, lab-grown diamonds are going to be much, much cheaper to work with. But will we see that reflected in watch prices?

And want about romance?

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Diamonds are forever. And so on.

But are lab-grown diamonds a girl’s best friend? Are they forever? I don’t see it.

Instead, I see a gross romance deficit. And if I were a brand pedalling theses stones, that would be a concern.

Cartier has already passed on lab-grown diamonds, which should tell us everything we need to know.

Analysts in the space have dubbed them a fashion product, which is about as damning a verdict as you’ll find.

Pandora is doing a roaring trade with them — but then given its position, it would.

What then for luxury watch brands dabbling?

Breitling, as we know, doesn’t appear to be dabbling. It’s gone all in. It says that by the end of next year, it’ll only be using lab-grown diamonds.

Honourable, sure. But good business?

TAG Heuer, to its credit, has made no mention of sustainable practices in its lab-grown diamond watch, the GPHG-nominated Plasma, which we can assume means there aren’t any.

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TAG Heuer introduced the Carrera Plasma last year, which is decorated with lab-grown diamonds.

But the volumes here are tiny. Instead, it positioned its watch as art, a playful piece that made a virtue of the creative freedoms growing diamonds in a lab provides.

Fair enough, although even then, the premium buyers are being invited to pay for this (well north of a quarter of a million quid, reportedly) feels precipitous.

So, what’s the theory?

At launch last year, Breitling chief executive Georges Kern made it clear to me he thinks that in 10 years’ time, lab-grown diamonds will be the norm in luxury because that’s what the next generation wants, and it’s what they’re telling us we should want, too.

Maybe so.

And if so, putting Breitling out front ahead of the chasing pack would be a smart play.

Lab-grown diamonds s8pakyvp ioyykl06 robin swithinbank about the authorBut, if the romance deficit kicks in, it could also condemn it to the role of mid-tier player; the Pandora of the watch world, which we know neither Mr Kern nor his backers want.

To get to the future he predicts, human nature will have to change.

We want what we can’t have, a principle on which luxury has always functioned. And as lab-grown diamonds become more ubiquitous and less expensive, lustful eyes will instead be lured towards the rare stones dug out of the ground.

No? Well, think of it this way: a diamond says I love you or, if self-bought, that I love myself and I’m worth loving.

Is that love rare and formed over billions of years? Or of the off-the-shelf, robot-made, cost-effective, chemically enhanced variety?

I’m under no illusion. And I’ll wager that even if the mantras are repeated ad infinitum, luxury consumers won’t be either.

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2 Comments

  1. Selling lab grown diamonds is like passing off a PVD gold coat as solid. I want solid gold and I want earth mined diamonds thank you. I believe the market will realize this very quickly when inventoring left over stock each year. Yes, there is a market for this, but not from the likes of Omega, Rolex, Grand Seiko and other top teir manufacturers. Until this year I would have included Breitling in the group, but apparently they are satisfied to be a fashioin designer rather than a watch maker…

  2. Well, Robin, thanks for a good thought-provoking article. Argue the DeBeers side, or argue the lab grown side positions, and all your collective opinions mean spit, not because your opinions are without merit, but because based upon their values and desires, the CONSUMER will decide with their wallets.

    Some would like to argue on the DeBeers side, and snob it up a bit, but tell me, you purists, do you insist only in Top Wesselton diamonds to make your subjective grade, or can natural diamonds full of inclusions and of I color still pass your benchmark? Which will look better in a watch bezel? And what makes you all the arbiters of what is acceptable.

    Argue all day and blow hard, but it’s the consumer who will decide. And if you’ve got the johnny for the best diamonds, then go to your preferred brand and special order your timepiece with flawless diamonds, and live happily ever after.

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