Prada recently released a new collection of fine jewelry that uses lab-grown diamonds as raw materials for jewelry. This is a bold move in the luxury market at the moment, as only a handful of high-end brands use lab-grown diamonds to create expensive jewelry in an industry dominated by natural diamonds.
This is Prada's second Eternal Gold fine jewelry collection, which still focuses on traceable renewable gold. The first Prada Eternal Gold fine jewelry collection was released in October 2022 and went on sale in Chinese mainland in early 2023.
The latest Eternal Gold fine jewellery collection continues the style pioneered by Timothy Iwata, Prada's Director of Jewellery Products, with the addition of 100% renewable white gold and lab-grown diamonds with "Prada cut" in both yellow and platinum while retaining the silhouette design of giant heart-shaped pendants, earrings, geometric serpentine bracelets and rings. The so-called "Prada cut" is a new type of diamond cutting method developed by Prada's jewelry craftsmen imitating the triangular shape of the Prada logo.
In early 2023, Timothy Iwata revealed in an interview with Interface News that Prada had already begun preparations for a second jewelry collection. The collection will continue to use renewable materials, and the selection of materials will no longer be limited to renewable gold. Timothy Iwata also mentioned at the time that the new boutique collection of jewelry is envisaged to be a collection that "combines part fine jewelry and part fine jewelry".
The new work released so far does follow this planning idea. On Prada's official website, all the styles of the new Eternal Gold boutique jewelry collection have been announced, but they have not officially started selling. The price of some new products has been marked, ranging from 2,000 (about 17,455 yuan) to 5,500 pounds (about 48,003 yuan).
At the same time, some jewelry pieces set with complete "Prada cut" lab-grown diamonds are marked as "Request for Quotation", and these pieces are sold in the form of pre-orders.
How Prada will price fine jewelry pieces set with lab-grown diamonds, and how consumer acceptance is worth watching. The outlook for lab-grown diamonds in the luxury market will have an impact on the natural diamond market, where the declining price of rough natural diamonds since 2023 has caused widespread concern in the industry.
Timothy Iwata recently told The Washington Post, "Lab-grown diamonds are not just making it possible to replicate nature in a short period of time (something that took hundreds of millions of years to create), they are actually pushing the boundaries of diamond cutting and luxury material concepts." Cultivated diamonds are not customized for some off-the-shelf materials, they are materials that we cultivate for our customers. ”
He added, "You can't make a crocodile grow into the bag you sell." ”
Prada is one of the few luxury brands in the luxury industry that promotes sustainable materials across the board. In 2021, all of Prada's clothing and bags switched to renewable Nimi, which is recycled from waste plastics in landfills and oceans around the world. According to a New York Times report, Prada now produces more than 91.44 million meters of renewable nylon fabric per year. Notably, switching to renewable materials and influencing the high pricing of Prada's nylon products.
In an interview with Interface News earlier this year, Timothy Iwata argued that Prada's past sustainable practices in the fashion industry have earned Prada a reputation, so Prada's determination to "disrupt the jewelry industry with renewable gold and traceable diamonds" is more credible.
At present, not many luxury brands use lab-grown diamonds in their products. Since 2023, in addition to Prada jewelry, only the jewelry brand Fred under the LVMH Group and the luxury watchmaking brand TAG Heuer have publicly used laboratory-grown diamonds in their products. Fred recently launched five lab-grown Fancy Blue diamonds, one of which weighs 8.88 carats. When the new Carrera watch was released in early 2023, TAG Heuer said that it was inlaid with pink cultured colored diamonds.
The prevailing view in the market is that lab-grown diamonds are the most promising in the light luxury consumer market, which can satisfy consumers to buy lab-grown diamonds with the same chemical composition as natural diamonds at an affordable price, achieving "carat freedom" and "diamond freedom". And this does not pose a threat to the high-end natural diamond market, which focuses on scarcity. However, due to the fact that the natural diamond and lab-grown diamond industry in the market has not yet formed a clear division, the continuous addition of high-luxury brands may open the "upward channel" of lab-grown diamonds.
Interface News Reporter | Huang Shan
Interface News Editor | Xu Yue