The Diamond Industry’s Old Guard Wants You to Buy ‘Natural’

Diamonds are among the most ancient, alien substances on the planet. They’re older than dinosaurs, older than plants. Diamonds were born back when the world resembled Mordor: a collection of angry volcanos, spewing gases and minerals into an atmosphere filled with lightning and methane clouds. Bits of carbon were trapped deep in the Earth’s mantle, then subjected to billions of years of unimaginable heat and pressure. This process transformed them into one of the hardest known substances — and one of the most precious. All the gem-quality diamonds ever found would fit inside a double-decker bus.

At least, they would have 20 years ago. These days, you can grow one in about a week, for the price of a breakfast burrito.

“I’ll show you what scares the diamond industry,” says Edahn Golan, co-founder of Tenoris LLC, a jewelry industry consulting and data analytics company. “When I meet with these executives, and they ask me, ‘How far can the price of diamonds fall?’ I show them this.” He gestures toward his laptop screen, which displays a walmart.com listing for a pair of half-carat diamond studs about the size of two lentils. Price: $12.

Companies whose diamond supply relies on digging are putting on a brave face. “If people can buy a pair of $12 lab-grown diamond earrings from Walmart, I feel nothing but delight,” says Al Cook, chief executive officer of De Beers Group. “It means you can buy something that looks beautiful for a very low price. I applaud Walmart. That has very little to do with our business.”