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MID BLOG

DE BEERS BLUE SOLD FOR $57.4 MILLION (cover)
DE BEERS BLUE SOLD FOR $57.4 MILLION, BUT FALLS JUST SHORT OF BREAKING RECORD

A milestone was almost passed on April 27, 2022, but not quite. The 15.10-carat De Beers Blue, which as was reported earlier in this blog series is the the largest vivid fancy colored blue diamond ever to appear at auction, was sold Sotheby’s Pacific Place Gallery in Hong Kong for more than $57.4 million. While substantially above the pre-sale estimated high price of $48 million, it still was just short of the record.

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MOTHER’S DAY TO OFFER A NEXT BIG JEWELRY OPPORTUNITY AS SPENDING FORECAST TO REACH RECORD HIGH

Mother’s Day, which is scheduled to be celebrated in the United States on May 8, is being widely forecast as the next major jewelry gift-giving opportunity. According to the annual consumer survey conducted by the country’s National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics, total spending is expected to total $31.7 billion this year, up $3.6 billion from 2021’s record spending.

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yelllow diamond
FROM BRANDING THE DIAMOND CUT TO ADDING A DIAMOND CUT TO THE BRAND

Few of the branded cuts introduced after De Beers changed its distribution policy in 2000 survived, with the reason for their failure being that almost none of the inexperienced diamond manufacturers could make the capital investment necessary to launch and maintain a consumer brand. But branded cuts appear to be making a comeback, however not in the way that was envisioned 20 years ago.

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FAT INDIAN WEDDINGS RETURN (cover)
AFTER A SLUMP IN 2020 FAT INDIAN WEDDINGS RETURN, CHANGED BY COVID BUT NOT DIMINISHED

One of the major influences on performance the jewelry industry over the years has been the Indian wedding seasons, typically running from October through December and then again in April and May. India celebrates between 10 million and 20 million weddings per year, of which about 80 percent are in the Hindu tradition. The Indian wedding business is estimated to be worth as much as $50 billion per annum, and gold jewelry and increasingly diamond and gemstone-set jewelry play a key role.

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JEWELRY IN THE METAVERSE
JEWELRY IN THE METAVERSE: THE COMING TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION (PART 2)

Ahead of the 2022 NFL Superbowl, the company operating Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp announced that following the football game it would be hosting a live virtual reality concert featuring the popular rock group Foo Fighters. For those fans who managed to attend, it must have been a surreal event – digitally present, while physically distant. It was a taste of what is to come, and entertainment is just part of the story.

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JEWELRY IN THE METAVERSE: THE COMING TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION (PART 1)

In the metaverse, people will have a “virtual presence,” meaning that they will not be observing life in the digital dimension through a screen from the outside, but they will feel that they actually exist within it, as one does the real world. In the metaverse, they will be able to communicate with others in the same space, as one does physically in regular life.

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A big green tree
THE CHALLENGE OF THE ENVIRONMENT: DIAMOND’S ACHILLES’ HEEL OR ITS BADGE OF HONOR?

A lawsuit is catching the attention of some in the diamond sector, because it signals what some believe is could be the industry’s next reputational challenge. Involved is a complaint by residents of Koidu, a mining area in Sierra Leone’s diamond-rich Kono district, in the northeast of the country. They are are suing the operators of a local diamond mine who they claim has polluted the environment.

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Growth graph
DIAMOND JEWELRY INDUSTRY WILL NEED TO ADAPT SO AS TO OPTIMIZE GROWTH POTENTIAL MOVING FORWARD

With most countries’ governments relaxing the stringent COVID restrictions they had imposed in 2020, in 2021 the personal luxury and diamond jewelry markets experienced decade-high growth, respectively increasing in size by 35 percent and 29 percent, according to the diamond report published this monrth by Bain & Company and the Antwerp World Diamond Center (AWDC). Such was the case even with the outbreak of coronavirus variants, where consumer optimism was propped up by the vaccination campaigns in major diamond-consuming regions.

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Diamond necklace
BAIN-AWDC: AFTER BRILLIANT RECOVERY FROM COVID CRISIS, DIAMOND INDUSTRY POISED FOR FURTHER GROWTH

Following a rollercoaster 2020, during which the diamond industry proved its resiliency, a “brilliant recovery” was staged in 2021, with every sector of the industry performing well, noted Bain & Company and the Antwerp World Diamond Center, in the 11th of their annual reports on the diamond industry. The market is expected to remain strong through the first half of 2022, the research paper added.

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