Professional makers of artificially created diamonds
Today, when it comes to laboratory diamonds, the key word is clarity. A phenomenon that has also reached Italy known as “lab-grown”, referring to diamonds that are not extracted from a mine, but created artificially, inserting a carbon molecule in a machine in which the same environmental conditions are reproduced (with a temperature of 1,500 degrees and with a pressure of 50/60,000 atmospheres) as when the rough stone is formed beneath the earth’s crust.
The result of this process is a stone with the same physical and chemical properties as a natural stone, at a considerably more affordable price.
These stones were among the stars of Vicenzaoro September 2019, where the World Diamond Group debuted the new X Diamond brand and Demetra showcased the Diamali brand. However, there are still very few jewellers which advertise this type of collection.
A number of industry professionals discussed this trend, including Giuliano Castrenze of X Diamond: “We made this choice in order to make the product more affordable.” Similarly, Sergio Sorrentino of Easy Diam maintains that synthetic diamonds are an opportunity to make diamonds more accessible for young people, however they risk damaging the sector if they are badly marketed.
According to Sorrentino, who recently created the Easy Diam brand, “the Italian market is still in the early stages and jewellers are not ready to take this step.”
Meanwhile, Paolo Gianotti, who owns the Diamali brand together with Alberto Petrosa of Demetra, the company that presented it at VicenzaOro, and also owns three “De Marchi Gianotti” jewellers in Aosta and Ivrea, commented: “We were the first company in Italy to have a brand with lab-grown diamonds, however we currently work more abroad.”
Finally, Francesco Belloni of Ethical Diamond reported that there has not been an enthusiastic response from Italian customers so far: “I made five pieces, presented in a special window and on the website, and currently I have only sold one to a Polish customer.”
