How the jewellery industry rebirthed the yellow diamond
Close your eyes and picture yourself hunting for engagement rings in Canberra. You wander into a jewellery store and pick up a ring with a large round cut diamond taking pride of place in the centre.
No doubt your mind pictured that diamond as perfectly colourless and beautifully shimmering. That has always been, and will likely continue to be, the public’s idea of a ‘perfect’ diamond.
It’s for this reason that ever since diamonds became a by-word for beauty, love, luxury and commitment, those with a light yellow or brown tint have been considered dirty and unwanted.
Just a decade or two ago brown and yellow diamonds weren’t even offered by jewellery stores (with the exception of canary yellow diamonds which have always been popular). They were generally just cast off to be used in industrial applications.
Jewellers were well aware of this issue, but it took a few of the smarter ones to figure out how to bump up the popularity, and subsequently the value, of yellow diamond engagement rings.
The solution, it turned out, was simple. What once was called ‘yellow’ or ‘brown’, was instead called ‘champagne’, ‘cognac’, ‘chocolate’ or ‘coffee’. Let’s face it - it’s hard to imagine saying yes to someone proposing with a light brown. A cognac, on the other hand…
This rebranding has worked incredibly well. Sales of faint yellow and faint brown diamonds have skyrocketed over the last few years, despite nothing changing except for the arrangement of letters that we refer to them with. And with a growth in demand, the value of these stones has skyrocketed too.
It’s yet another example of diamond marketing brilliance; a list that continues to get longer and longer. And presumably it won’t be the last.
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