March 2022 | Lab Grown Magazine

March 2022 | The Lab Grown Diamond Resource Book 30 To advertise call (888) 832-1109 | March 2022 31 The elaborate LGD-only collection features climate neutral, grown stones by Latitude from WD Diamonds. Sandrine de Laage, creative director for Massin said, “Oscar Massin was a diamond reformer. We believe that if he were alive today, he’d do what we’re doing because his aim was to make the industry progress.”De Laage is also a Luximpact partner with Frédéric de Narp and Coralie de Fontenay, a luxe marketing director. “Two and a half years ago, I gathered with Sandrine and we decided it was the right moment to put our strength together,” says de Narp. “We met with our sales partner, Coralie (former CEO of Cartier, France).We saw an amazing opportunity to acquire Oscar Massin.” And so they did. Stay tuned. THE COLOROFMONEY Following in the pioneering footsteps of Carrol Chatham, Tom Chatham’s destiny would reveal a color clad and strategic business acumen of his own. Upholding the Chatham brand as America’s renowned man-made gemstone creation house and the first company to grow emeralds, the brand now offers Chatham-created Alexandrite, Aqua blue Spinel, blue, champagne, padparadscha and pink Sapphire, Diamond and Ruby – grown and sold as loose gemstones or set within their jewelry collections. Tom Chatham’s history is colorful. While the brand’s initial springboard was in Chatham-created emeralds some eighty years ago, a hellacious legal battle between mined emerald producers and his company raged for many years in decades past. He, his family and company emersed as the proud victor, best detailed in a future interview aligned to his upcoming book. For now, here’s a glimpse into the mind of a master grower, and his thoughts on LGDs worth and value: Q: Do you view mined and man-made diamonds evolving into a unified front, and why? A: No, I don’t see us evolving into a unified front but I do see a less divisive one. We don’t work with any colored stone companies today, except on a special order basis. The naturals flaunt their rarity and uniqueness, but we find their cutting is usually subpar. Only a very few of the natural people can approach a manufacturer or chain store and say,”If you need 500 stones in a pear shape of 7 x 5 mm calibration, we can do it.” Not even diamond is cut to calibration, just ‘pigeon-holed’ for the size it comes out. Even proper proportioning is off in diamond and color cutting. That’s why cutting is now graded; important in pricing. Bottomline, we cut precisely to size, and we guarantee the stone against breakage. The natural folks could do this but at a huge loss in yield. Our average is around 22%, natural around 55% from the original rough weight. A good retailer sells both LG and natural, but a lesser one will only sell natural since they don’t understand how to represent LG. Q: Many equate the worth of precious gemstones to their respective suggested retail price (SRP) .What are your thoughts on natural white diamond price increases compared to the current decline of LG white diamond SRPs? A: Natural gemstones and diamonds have a problem. They are getting priced out of the market and there isn’t a damn thing they can do about it, short of a unified refusal to buy (it has happened). There will be fall out in the LGD industry just as there was with past created emerald and ruby producers.RememberGilson? Biron? Inamori? Kashan? Ramora ? Regency? Union Carbide? All gone... some we bought out, but most just threw in the towel. Chatham, Inc. was affected, but not wounded, at least not severely. We lost volume but increased margins by walking away from majors.We probably will go through this with LGD too as many players try to work on thinner and thinner margins. At Chatham, Inc., we stay our course and strive to make the best products and market them that way. To us, the cost to do so is secondary. Q: ‘Tulip Mania’ was the first price bubble in history, occurring in the Netherlands during the mid-to-late 1600’s. Specific tulip bulbs of unique colors and shapes became a coveted treasure. The cost of certain single tulip bulbs could buy a street worth of consumer homes at that time. Suddenly, the market came to a screeching halt. Do you draw any ‘Tulip Mania’ parallels to the natural or LG diamond pricing situation? A: There are a lot of parallels between the The luxe label you never heard of has the art world in a spin, and Hollywood A-listers writing big checks. Get to know the diamond legacy of Paris’ Oscar Massin and get to know a fresh, luxe LGD name spoken of by the wealthy. Photo: Oscar Massin