Rio Tinto Diamonds has taken charge of the whopping campaign to promote champagne color diamonds.
Rio Tinto is the largest supplier of this kind of diamonds, which are being mined in the Argyle field in Australia. The color of offered diamonds varies from light champagne to dark cognac.
The company has released a block of dedicated advertising materials to promote this type of diamonds on the market. These materials include a booklet, a training sales program, and some other advertising stuff. An Internet page has been posted to back up the campaign.
The company informed that jewelry manufacturers interested in developing and promoting diamond collections of this color group would have an opportunity to meet the Rio Tinto market department officials at the JCK Las Vegas Show.
Earth-tone diamonds in varying shades have long been redheaded stepchildren of their “first water” diamond brothers, National Jeweler says. Now they are emerging as favourites. Just don’t call them “brown.”
They are promoted as “chocolate color” diamonds, or “cognac” or “champagne” color gemstones. Brown diamonds are very popular among fashion-conscious consumers who want jewelry that can be matched to their outfits.
Brown and yellow are the two most commonly found diamond colors. However, this is a relative definition, as only one out of every 10,000 diamonds officially qualifies as a colored diamond, says Robert May, executive director of the Natural Color Diamond Association (NCDIA).
May believes that jewelers, who are interested in selling colored diamonds, should begin with the more plentiful and comparatively affordable browns before spending top dollar for the extremely rare and hence expensive colors such as pink and blue.
“Champagne, cognac and chocolate diamonds are the perfect entry point to come into the colored-diamond market,” May says.
Liz Chatelain, chief executive officer of MVI Marketing and co-founder of the Indo-Argyle Diamond Council, began working with the Argyle mine in 1989. She says at that time, the general attitude toward brown diamonds, or “champagne,” as Argyle has termed them, was negative.
The trade has always been the main damper for these stones on their way to consumers, Liz says. “They did not think the consumer would like champagne diamonds. They had always been taught by De Beers that the best diamonds were white, therefore champagne diamonds had no place in jewelry.”
But, she says, that started to change around 1992 when David Yurman made his first champagne-diamond piece. From this time on, brown diamonds popularity began to pick up steam.
According to Liz, today’s high-end designers mix champagne diamonds with white ones.
“It is still a small part of the diamond jewelry business but adds style and interest to jewelry collections around the world,” she says.
When converted into polished diamonds and mounted into jewelry, brown diamonds constitute $4-5 billion of the world’s retail diamond jewelry sales each year, or roughly 7%, according to Rio Tinto.
Le Vian is another well-known brand that contributes to brown-diamond working. Headed by Eddie LeVian, CEO, designer and director, Le Vian has its own brand of “chocolate” diamonds. In LeVian’s opinion, the chocolate color appeals to women more so than “champagne” or “cognac.”
Celebrities who are falling for the brown diamonds vogue include hotel heiress Paris Hilton, tennis superstar Serena Williams and “Heroes” actress Hayden Panettiere.
While the average jeweler cannot flaunt such starry clientele, LeVian points out that celebrities are no different than other women in choosing their adornments.
Jewelry is no longer about a woman’s husband buying her one piece she keeps her entire life, LeVian says offering brown diamond pieces ranging from $200 to more than $100,000.
Another designer cluing in to the brown trend is Justine Simmons, sister-in-law of Simmons Jewelry Co. owner Russell Simmons. In team with this company she launched the “Brown Sugar” Collection.
With price points ranging between $199 and $599, Simmons says she has designed a collection that is fashionable and can be worn with everything from a ball gown to regular blue jeans.
The designer’s future plans involve expanding into the male audience and incorporating brown topaz and quartz pieces into the line.
