Tastemaker’s Note
The diamond market just posted its best month in over a year. July RAPI data shows all four major size categories flat or positive for the first time since March 2025 — small stones leading the recovery, with 0.30ct up 1.6% and 0.50ct up 1.8%. The story isn't that diamonds are back. It's that the market is bifurcating and natural stones are finding a floor while lab-grown continues to compress the middle. Where you sit in that split is the whole investment question right now.

On the colored side, the picture is quieter but telling that fancy-color prices were essentially flat in Q2, with vivid pinks the lone bright spot at +0.5% while blues and yellows softened. In essence, colored diamonds are here to stay.

For decades we’ve been sold the story that diamonds are forever. But De Beers, the storyteller itself is for sale. So, is it still the case, or did we escape into the depths of our aspirational dreams?

The question has sparked debates amongst both existing and new entrants to the market. Because humans were mining diamonds for 2,500 years, but the industry most people recognize today is only about 160 years old.

Long before De Beers democratized and standardized the practice of giving diamonds as significant gifts, royalty from all parts of the globe exchanged diamonds as symbols of love, power, diplomacy and devotion for centuries.

💍 When Napoleon Bonaparte proposed to Joséphine, he presented a ring featuring both a sapphire and a diamond. This is one of history’s most famous engagement gifts and predates De Beers by 150 years.

💍 Queen Victoria’s engagement ring from Prince Albert featured a serpent (of course, Bvlgari wasn’t first with the Serpenti theme). The serpent was a Victorian symbol of eternal love and it had diamonds among its gemstones.

It was through Queen Victoria’s influence that helped popularize sentimental jewelry throughout Europe, including diamond pieces given for engagements, anniversaries and even family milestones.

Diamonds became associated with memory and legacy. Colored gemstones were considered highly fashionable.

So, De Beers did not invent the giving of diamonds. They simply reframed the diamond from a luxury object into a cultural ritual. Diamonds were in fact always beautiful to the eye, with no convincing necessary.

What De Beers did instead was convince millions that a proposal felt incomplete without one.

Others joined in on the story → A diamond is forever, they all said. Rare, forged under immense heat and pressure, nearly 3.5 billion years in the making. It must first be unearthed through one of the world's most resource-intensive industries before passing through countless stages of sorting, cutting, and polishing to reveal its brilliance. Every step reinforces the same narrative: the scarcity, the time, the craftsmanship, and the extraordinary effort before its even brought into sellable commercial format.

→ All of that became the foundation of the diamond's perceived value today.
→ And, all of that came crashing down as the “accident” of lab-grown diamonds were brought to life.

Today, diamond prices have fallen 50% to their lowest levels this century. The real ones, that is. And even Russia, the world’s largest producer has entirely banned the use of the word “diamond” for the lab-grown man-made stones, which makes us ponder about the ethics of labeling and marketing….

Think about it for a second: we’re calling stones “diamonds” when they only mimic the real thing, whether look or feel.

So, if we can call an imitation stone, a diamond, what is the difference between a fake and real Birkin or Chanel Quilted Leather Bag?

The same thing goes for everyday fruits and vegetables. If it’s chemically made, can we call it a banana? I’d go with faux-nana 🍌 (and keep the strikethrough as a branding element 😆).

Is the lowering of standards increasing the likelihood of counterfeit goods?
If it’s available and accessible, does it hold the same value?
Is the “luxury” still there or does it simply mimic it?

Right now, the faker is challenging the maker to rethink its purpose, when it’s been naturally obtained from the earth’s resources for billions of years, but us humans just figured out how to tell the story…

The ethical question about these industrial rocks (yes, they were initially created for that) will still exist. But what’s most revealing is the evolution of the story tied to price and value.

“A diamond is forever,” De Beers said. They tied this story by selling the commodity of natural diamonds through mining. Meanwhile, the distinction across competitors like Van Cleef & Arpels or Graff rarely markets a piece by saying, “look at this one-carat diamond.”

Someone purchasing an Alhambra necklace is buying the Van Cleef story. The gemstone is only one of the ingredients of the recipe. Graff’s business is built around the rarest diamonds. For someone spending $10 million on a museum-quality flawless diamond, a lab-grown alternative is not the substitute. They are paying for geological rarity and provenance.

And hey, a diamond is still forever, but it’s the story that needs better polish.

(Read The Future of Diamonds from 5-Course Thursday Tasting 👇)

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💠💠 Something To Consider 💠💠

Some see a sandwich. Others see a symbol of excess, of rarity, and even celebration.

Luxury has always transformed ordinary moments into extraordinary ones. The question is: as more things become accessible, what will earn the right to feel rare?

P.S. Like my style (and taste)? Work with me.