Stanley T K Wong’s Post

This is an interesting read. It is written by a pro-mined diamond advocate so I would read it with a healthy dose of cynicism. We need to think about how LGD can be more aggressive in its story telling to take even more business away from mined diamonds. Marketing warfare. Kamikaze is suicidal. We can do it smarter.

Would this work for LGD Jewellery ?

Fancy natural color diamonds are not affordable to 99.9 percent of consumers. Lab grown fancy color diamonds are affordable to anyone who can afford LGD diamonds. What we need is a Lab Grown Fancy Colour Diamond Assocation to promote LGD Fancy Colour diamonds. The future of LGD is bright and colourful. Lets get a LGD Council up and running and there should be a Committee on fancy colour LGD. If you remember the Olivia Newton song Let’s get physical then we should Let’s get organised ! Things go better with music.

Recently Omkar Desai had been sharing a few beautiful fancy colour diamonds. I was curious as to whether the stones were for sale so I have had the pleasure of communicating with Omkar offline. Omkar shared with me this video which explains what they do. I hope you find this interesting too. Clearly his company is very advanced technologically. I hope that this technology can be applied to high quality LGD fancy colour as well ! As I have said repeatedly, there can be high end LGD as well ! It may be more affordable but just as luxurious !

Daniel Scott I am a relative newbie to LGD but based on my past few years trying to keep informed I have concluded that almost each and every scenario on the trajectory of LGD has been discussed and beat to death. I also think that the steep decline in LGD prices over the last few years took everyone by surprise. Ironically the anti- LGD camp who predicted LGD will become worthless can claim that they were right. I don’t think there is much to gain revisiting the deliberations of the past. Our energy should be spent on mapping the future. Sadly the mined diamond cartel and their proxies including NDC and CIBJO’s cannot see it clear to embrace LGD and doing their overt and not so subtle LGD bashing. The jewellery media remains sentimental to mined diamonds. The reality is that LGD is here to stay and will gradually change the consumer perception of diamonds. They are not rare nor unaffordable. The challenge is to create a new story sans rare and expensive. Luxury need not be expensive. It need not be an investment. It need not have a resale value. I am well aware that creativity and innovation may more likely come from an individual like Jobs. However the LGD space is totally disorganised today and needs a unified voice. The consumer is totally confused. So I invite you to join forces with tom (thomas) chatham Martin Roscheisen @Amish Shah Tej Singh and myself and many others motivated stakeholders to create an effective LGD Council. There is not much to gain to look back on what could have been. The future is bright for LGD. Let’s make sure our industry is built on solid foundations to serve the consumer while providing a livelihood for LGD stakeholders. We need not worry about the future of the mined diamond industry. If they don’t change their bad habits they will become irrelevant. The best we can do is excel in what we do. So let’s look to the future. Human progress is about achieving more with less. This is the promise of LGD. We should celebrate what LGD has to offer to consumers and scientific applications.

This article by Martin Rapaport is a good read. I am not sure I agree that the cannibalization of the mined diamond market in diamond engagement ring will stall at 50%. Why not 60% or more ? I don’t have a crystal ball but Martin has taken an elitist view that LGD are for the less affluent. And mined diamonds are for the well off elite. This is a very simplistic view. The mined diamond consumers will shrink in number as they age. The younger generation has not been brainwashed by De beers iconic campaign. It is extremely likely they will accept LGD especially given the price differential. The glory days of mined diamonds are over. Currently it is on life support. Just like the Chinese stock market is on life support. Unless you address the fundamentals throwing money to prop up the stock market is not the solution. In a way this is happening in mined diamond market. You cannot prop up prices by cutting production. What about the rough producing nations ? I don’t have a crystal ball but don’t hold your breath for China to come roaring back anytime soon. Maybe it is time to let mined diamond prices find its new normal. Downward.

This is an interesting article and particulary relevant to how independent retailers can have a competitive edge to offer innovative LGD designs to it customers not available from the Signet banners. Interesting concept. Now more than ever I am beginning to appreciate the importance of independent retailers in the jewellery business.

Price and Prejudice and the Parting of the Sea This video is well worth the time to watch. It is about 1 hour. I was somewhat surprised that the subject of the discussion assumed a Growing Separation rather than say an integration ? So it a way the conclusion is already that Natural and LGD have different destinies. Edahn Golan set the stage with the first slide. However, I believe that a equally convincing argument can be made is that natural and LGD is a continuum. LGD is affordable so there is a big price differential. The fact that US consumers have accepted LGD as an option in engagement rings supports the continuum perspective and that LGD can be substituted for naturals. When I was watching the video, I sensed that there was an effort to part the ocean. I thought about how fresh water blends with sea water. I also had a biblical image of the parting of the sea. And yes, when in Italy serve pasta. It was a CIBJO sponsored event so some bias was inevitable. I have a great deal of respect for Edahn Golan and his objectivity so I do not wish to detract from a most interesting discussion. The panelist all shared their perspectives. As usual it was very a very civil and diplomatic exchange of ideas but the views were not all in alignment. I liked the comment made by Martin that when you are a vegan restaurant you don’t need to promote what you don’t offer. The NDC speaker was a bit hypocritical about not wanting to carrying out any LGD bashing which they do. I look forward to the DMCC symposium in Dubai in November. Martin made a strong case for the need to sell painting and not paint. The reality is you can create innovative art with LGD but not all arr created by LGD can be created using natural diamonds. There is a need to nuture LGD design and innovation. I look forward to more action which may be facilitated by the formation of a LGD Council which is a work in progress of a small group of LGD stakeholders. The need for an unified voice is long overdue. If a representative of the imaginary LGD Council was an invited guest in this panel, it would have been even more interesting. I felt short changed that no one was present to make our case. But please watch the video !!! Our time will come.