Couples find that lab-grown diamonds make it cheaper to get engaged or upgrade to a bigger ring. But there are rocky moments.
4 min
Wedding planner Sterling Boulet has some advice for brides-to-be regarding lab-grown diamonds, which cost a fraction of the natural ones.
“If you’re trying to get your man to propose, they’ll propose faster if you offer this as an option,” says Boulet, of Raleigh, N.C. Recently, she adds, a friend’s fiancé “thanked me the next three times I saw him” for telling him about the cheaper lab-made option.
Man-made diamonds are catching on, despite some lingering stigma. This year was the first time that sales of lab-made and natural mined loose diamonds, primarily used as centre stones in engagement rings, were split evenly, according to data from Tenoris, a jewellery and diamond trend-analytics company.
The rise of lab-made stones, however, is bringing up quirks alongside the perks. Now that blingier engagement rings—above two or three carats—are more affordable, more people are dealing with the peculiarities of wearing rather large rocks.
Esther Hare, a 5-foot-11-inch former triathlete, sought out a 4.5-carat lab-made oval-shaped diamond to fit her larger hands as a part of her vow renewal in Hawaii last year. It was a far cry from the half-carat ring her husband proposed with more than 25 years ago and the 1.5-carat upgrade they purchased 10 years ago. Hare, 50, who lives in San Jose, Calif., and works in high tech, chose a $40,000 lab-made diamond because “it’s nuts” to have to spend $100,000 on a natural stone. “It had to be big—that was my vision,” she says.
But the size of the ring has made it less practical at times. She doesn’t wear it for athletic training and swaps in her wedding band instead. And she is careful to leave it at home when traveling. “A lot of times I won’t take it on vacation because it’s just a monster,” she says.
The average retail price for a one-carat lab-made loose diamond decreased to $1,426 this year from $3,039 in 2020, according to the Tenoris data. Similar-sized loose natural diamonds cost $5,426 this year, compared with $4,943 in 2020.
Lab-made diamonds have essentially the same chemical makeup as natural ones, and look the same, unless viewed through sophisticated equipment that gauges the characteristics of emitted light.
At Ritani, an online jewellery retailer, lab-made diamond sales make up about 70% of the diamonds sold, up from roughly 30% two years ago, says Juliet Gomes, head of customer service at the company, based in White Plains, N.Y.
Ritani sometimes records videos of the lab-diamonds pinging when exposed to a “diamond tester,” a tool that judges authenticity, to show customers that the man-made rocks behave the same as natural ones. “We definitely have some deep conversations with them,” Gomes says.
Not all gem dealers are rolling with these stones.
Philadelphia jeweller Steven Singer only stocks the natural stuff in his store and is planning a February campaign to give about 1,000 one-carat lab-made diamonds away free to prove they are “worthless.” Anyone can sign up online and get one in the mail; even shipping is free. “I’m not selling Frankensteins that were built in a lab,” Singer says.
Some brides are turned off by the larger bling now allowed by the lower prices.When her now-husband proposed with a two-carat lab-grown engagement ring, Tiffany Buchert, 40, was excited about the prospect of marriage—but not about the size of the diamond, which she says struck her as “costume jewellery-ish.”
“I said yes in the moment, of course, I didn’t want it to be weird,” says the physician assistant from West Chester, Pa.
But within weeks, she says, she fessed up, telling her fiancé: “I think I hate this ring.”
The couple returned it and then bought a one-carat natural diamond for more than double the price.
When Boulet, the wedding planner in Raleigh, got engaged herself, she was over the moon when her fiancé proposed with a 2.3 carat lab-made diamond ring. “It’s very shiny, we were almost worried it was too shiny and was going to look fake,” she says.
It doesn’t, which presents another issue—looking like someone who really shelled out for jewellery. Boulet will occasionally volunteer that her diamond ring came from a lab.
“I don’t want people to think I’m putting on airs, or trying to be flashier than I am,” she says.
For Daniel Teoh, a 36-year-old software engineer outside of Detroit, buying a cheaper lab-made diamond for his fiancée meant extra room in his $30,000 ring budget.
Instead of a bigger ring, he got her something they could both enjoy. During a walk while on an annual ski trip to South Lake Tahoe, Calif., Teoh popped the question and handed his now-wife a handmade wooden box that included a 2.5-carat lab-made diamond ring—and a car key.
She put on the ring, celebrated with both of their sisters and a friend, who was the unofficial photographer of the happy event, and then they drove back to the house. There, she saw a 1965 Mustang GT coupe in Wimbledon white with red stripes and a bow on top.
Looking back, Teoh says, it was still the diamond that made the big first impression.
“It wasn’t until like 15 minutes later she was like ‘so, what’s with this key?’” he adds.
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Bremont has become the first British watch brand bound for the lunar surface, launching its new Supernova collection alongside a groundbreaking mission with aerospace company Astrolab.
2 min
Luxury British watchmaker Bremont is about to make history.
Later this year, the brand will become the first British watch company to place a timepiece permanently on the Moon through a collaboration with American aerospace company Astrolab.
The mission centres on Astrolab’s FLIP rover (FLEX Lunar Innovation Platform), which will carry a Bremont Supernova Chronograph aboard Astrobotic’s Griffin Mission One.
The rover is scheduled to land in the Nobile region near the lunar south pole no earlier than summer 2026, launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
Unlike watches that have previously accompanied astronauts into space, this one won’t be coming home. The Supernova Chronograph will remain on the Moon as a permanent artefact, integrated into the FLIP rover’s chassis via a custom-engineered tile plate.
The timing carries extra weight. The White House has tasked NASA with establishing a Coordinated Lunar Time by the end of 2026, a consistent, atomic-clock-based standard for navigation and communication on the Moon. Bremont’s watch will land in the same year that lunar time itself comes into being.
“We are incredibly excited by the prospect of becoming the first British watch brand in history to go to the Moon and stay there indefinitely,” said Davide Cerrato, CEO of Bremont.
“Bremont and Astrolab share deep synergies in their values, particularly around innovation, exploration, and a relentless pursuit of new frontiers.”
Astrolab founder and CEO Jaret Matthews said the mission was designed to prove technology can survive the Moon’s harshest conditions.
“This mission is all about demonstrating critical technologies in the harsh environments found at the lunar south pole. We look forward to putting the Supernova through the ultimate engineering test.”
Before launch, both the watch and the rover must pass a gruelling testing regime known as Spacecraft Protoflight Qualification, covering structural, thermal and electrical performance under conditions more severe than the mission itself will demand.
The process follows what Astrolab calls a “Test Like You Fly” philosophy.
The mission also marks the debut of Supernova, a new collection that sits above Bremont’s existing Supermarine, Terra Nova and Altitude lines, and introduces Space as a fourth universe alongside the brand’s established Sea, Land and Air categories.
The 41mm Supernova Chronograph is built from 904L stainless steel, with a multi-faceted decahedral black ceramic bezel and a three-dimensional dial inspired by the geometry of spacecraft solar arrays.
It runs on Bremont’s chronometer-rated BC77 movement, with a 62-hour power reserve and an exhibition case back.
A full-scale FLIP rover will be on display at the Bremont booth at Watches & Wonders Geneva, which opens on April 14, the brand’s third consecutive year exhibiting at the show.
