Royal Engagement

Another heirloom is added to the royal jewelry collective now that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have recently become engaged.

Prince Harry worked with Queen Elizabeth II’s trusted jeweler, Cleave and Company, to craft a brilliantly meaningful ring.

The center stone is sourced from Botswana, a place significant to the couple since they enjoyed a camping trip there just weeks after first meeting.  The ring carries a literal piece of the land as a beautiful reminder of the galvanized beginnings of their romance.

The two side stones were taken from Princess Diana’s jewelry collection which was left to Prince William and Harry upon her death.

Using life as inspiration for developing the ring, Prince Harry notes, “It’s incredibly special. And you know to be able to have this [the ring] which sort of links where you come from and Botswana which is important to us. It’s perfect.”

The three stone yellow gold ring is an instant classic and will surely influence many 2018 proposals just as Princess Diana’s velvety sapphire ring has done for nearly 40 years.

Congratulations to the Royal Couple!

Sources:

New York Times

ABC News

My Engagement Experience

I have spent a significant amount of my career finding the perfect ring for others, when finally last June came my turn.  Unconventionally I set out ring shopping with my mother.  Josh was open to me styling my own ring since jewelry is something I’m incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about.

To start, the best advice I can give is talk to your friends then try on everything before making any kind of decision. Try on styles that you would never imagine trying on, try the big stone and a small stone, try different metals, try everything. By doing this you’ll positively know when you found the perfect ring.  By talking with friends they will tell you where and who they went to, what they liked and didn’t like about the process. This really helps you to know what to expect when going to different shops.

My adventure started out just like that. I asked around and conceived a list of places to look, then tried on EVERYTHING, even if it wasn’t my style.

In the end I decided on a local jeweler Bario Neal. I knew I wanted a three stone style with a yellow center.  Why did I choose yellow? Well, I knew I was going with a simple design so I wanted a way to give the ring a personal twist. Having worked extensively with jewelry, I have seen so many engagement rings and really wanted something of my own that I have not seen repeatedly.  Also the journey of the yellow diamond intrigued me, so I liked the idea of having a little bit of history on my finger.

Photo by Bario Neal

Happy with my sketch, I waited for the jeweler to receive in a choice between two yellow cushion cut Kalahari diamonds from their contact in Namibia.  In cooperation with De Beers, this Namibian source mined and manufactured these diamonds. So not only am I aware of the origin of my stone, I also know I was ethically supporting the diamond economy locally in Africa.  Having this much information about my ring really got me curious and I further delved into how the yellow diamond came about as a engagement choice historically.

I found that India has been the birthplace for some of the world’s most incredibly colored stones.  These stones were very much part of past Indian culture. In fact, different colored diamonds were used within India’s caste system in the sixth-century.  

Brahmins, the priests and rulers, had white to colorless diamonds.

Landowners and warriors were defined by brown diamonds.

The merchant class, yellow. The lower classes then had heavily included grayish to black diamonds.

Beyond using colored stones as an identifying tool, fancy colored diamonds were seen as a nuanced novelty.  They did not garner popularity until the discovery of the Australian Argyle Mine in the 1980’s.

Now we have coined trade terms such as Canary and Champagne as well as other tantalizing titles to describe a diamond's color.

A diamond's journey to discovery is an arduous one where nature incubates the stone into existence in a very specific way.  The mineral carbon under intense heat and pressure within the earth’s mantle is nature’s recipe for a diamond.  Once created that diamond is then carried to the earth’s surface by a release in pressure, often some sort of volcanic activity.

Colored diamonds are produced because of the presence of trace elements. In my yellow diamond’s case, nitrogen is the reason for color the stone. The amount of nitrogen determines the color intensity. I loved the softness of the yellow in my stone in contrast to the hard yellow color of the 18 karat metal I chose.  The stone had a delicate feel, giving off a nurturing sensitivity about the beginning of this new part of Josh and I’s relationship.  It fit exactly how I felt.

So on top of color I was intrigued by story that this particular diamond had to tell, it became unique to me as well as being aesthetically pleasing to my taste.

You can check out Bario Neal's Spring 2017 collection here as well as other fun jewels:

http://bario-neal.com/

Millennials and Diamonds, an Open Letter

Typically I just post about jewelry projects that interest me and try to keep my blog light and informative, but as a millennial working in the jewelry industry I am tired of being told what I want and what I should be looking for by the founding diamond companies. It’s getting too painful to ignore the broadening disconnect between iconic brands and the millennial customers they are trying to impress. It almost seems like “millennial” is a buzzword that no one really bothered to research.

I keep coming across campaigns catered to my age group, like parents talking over their children's heads, like they are not there, incapable of listening and understanding.  I see it, I hear you, and your are missing our thought process by miles.

The most recent campaign I have come across is Real is Rare, Real is a Diamond.  Released by Diamond Producers Association (DPA) trying to appeal to the millennial with a whimsical video of a carefree couple lost in the wanderlust of life.  The short video is comprised of flashes of incoherent images with a monologue detailing a topical description of their "real" relationship. DPA makes a desperate attempt to move away from the marketing archetype of diamonds = marriage, but it falls short. They are trying to loosen up and connect to millennials with a video that seems forced, insincere, and the diamonds weren't even the focal point. I lost interest in the strained story and actually ended up focusing more on the clothing in the video than the diamond necklaces that were being shown. In the end the same archaic message weakly came across, couples should solidify a relationship by gifting diamonds.

Another campaign I’ve seen recently is from De Beers. De Beers had the incredibly successful 1947 Ad campaign A Diamond is Forever by copy-writer Frances Gerety of N.W. Ayer & Son. At the time De Beers was top dog of the industry controlling the ebb and flow of diamond resources.  So of course they would be able to control the media for the diamond as well.  Now the diamond giant has been minimized due to bad press and in 2012 De Beers has shifted 85% of its ownership to another diamond company.

So now, with less clout than they had before, they tried to strike gold again with their 2015 campaign, Seize the Day.  The campaign failed to impress since it was more of the same boring concept, shoving engagement rings at the consumer so aggressively that they walk away. We live in a time where our worth is not determined by marriage, so why does the industry keep advertising that way?

Too be blunt, most of the diamonds I own I have bought myself with my hard earned money.  A treat I was proud to purchase for myself because I work with jewelry and like jewelry.  As for my longtime boyfriend, he does shower me with gifts whether it be jewelry or artwork, it does not matter, the gift was thoughtful and by no means defined our relationship.

A powerful Ad I think people would respond to would cater to the fact most millennial women buy themselves jewelry as a deserved treat.  The industry does realize that we are the bulk of the US diamond buying market, but they clearly still do not understand why.  They do not understand that we have satisfaction in working hard and earning something we desired.  It is completely gratifying to wear something you worked for. To go out with friends and say, “I worked overtime and absolutely owned my latest project, I treated myself to new earrings”.

Not at all to undermine the institution of marriage, I just went engagement ring shopping myself, but it needs to be realized engagement is not the cornerstone of the diamond market anymore, it’s a part of a whole view.  And if you keep only looking at one small facet of an idea, you are bound to miss a major amount of opportunity. I love diamonds, I love the industry, I love my job, but I am at a complete loss every time I see a new campaign catered to “the millennial”.