Lab-Grown Diamond Line Shutters First Store

(nationaljeweler.com) - Los Angeles--Less than six months after opening, fine jewelry line Vrai & Oro has shuttered its first brick-and-mortar retail location. The brand began in 2014 as an online-only venture, marketing itself as a company that sold directly to customers without a retail markup. In November 2016, Diamond Foundry—the Silicon Valley man-made diamond start-up that uses solar power technology to create its stones—purchased Vrai & Oro, which led to a slew of growth initiatives for the brand. Vrai & Oro began using Diamond Foundry stones exclusively and launched both a bridal collection and a collection of jewelry that featured significantly larger diamonds than Vrai & Oro had used in the past. In August last year, Vrai & Oro opened its first store in downtown Los Angeles at the ROW DTLA shopping center. In the first week of January, Vrai & Oro founder Vanessa Stofenmacher announced the closing of the store on the brand’s website, writing, “The fact is that retail is a true challenge—one that we would never enter into lightly, and we have to give props to those thriving in that environment.”