Page 77 - Sharp Spring 2021

NEARLY TWO YEARS AGO, CANADIAN ICON and multiple Grammy Award–winning artist Drake made headlines when he was gifted a sports jacket covered in
235 hand-set diamonds. Created and presented to him by Toronto’s Garrison Bespoke, the one-of-a-kind piece cost nearly $700,000. “I would say it’s pretty much priceless though,” says Michael Nguyen, the founder and owner of the tailor shop. An artist like Drake guarantees Nguyen’s company some shine, after all. But a deeper dive into the details of the jacket prove it’s not just about how much it costs or the sort of press Nguyen is getting because of it — it’s about what the item represents. Boasting a 100-year- old deadstock jersey cloth from the House of Dormeuil’s private collection, the jacket is, in fact, entirely decorated with lab-grown
diamonds from Diamond Foundry.
“If I’m making something for Drake specifically, I could go find
a unique diamond in Africa,” says Nguyen. “But [how much more special] is a diamond grown specifically for him?” Drake, however, isn’t the only public figure to be associated with the innovative product. The Duchess of Sussex has been spotted wearing a pair of lab-grown earrings, and the likes of Lady Gaga, Zoë Kravitz, and Billy Porter have also donned pieces of the sort.
Lest you start searching for images to dissect the lab-diamond- covered jacket, let us tell you that what is most remarkable about these types of jewels is that — to the naked eye and even to some microscopes — they look no different than earth-mined diamonds. Which all provokes the questions: what exactly are lab-grown diamonds, and are they here to revolutionize the jewellery business?
Synthetic jewels have been around since at least the 1940s. Be it cubic zirconia or moissanite, the human disposition toward all things shiny has birthed a slew of diamond-adjacent products that are anything but. (In fact, they are actually referred to as simulants.) The lab-grown diamonds that have become popular in the industry recently stand apart because, unlike synthetic gems, these are chemically identical to their natural counterparts.
The synthetically created sparkles can be made through two different processes: one using a high pressure/high temperature (HPHT)system,andtheother, chemicalvapourdeposition(CVD). Slightly different in execution, both methods start off with a diamond seed (quite literally, a flat sliver of the stuff) that gets worked on until it resembles its natural equivalent.
“It is not a lookalike,” says Steven Ebrani, co-founder of lab- created diamond company Stefano Navi. “It is not about it looking identical to a diamond. It is chemically identical to one.”
Given the history of mined diamonds and their association with war zone activity and destructive environmental practices, those in the synthetic industry tout the just-as-dubious eco-friendly aspects of lab-grown diamonds as a benefit over natural ones. >
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