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Anabela Chan said she chose her materials after witnessing what
she said were poor working conditions in diamond mines.
"These are some of the most precious and valuable commodities in
the world, that just didn't make any sense to me," she said, in
her Knightsbridge boutique in central London.
Instead, her designs rely on lab-grown diamonds, recycled
aluminum from cans and pearls grown using regenerative farming
techniques.
Chan's company does not give sales figures but said it had seen
strong demand since the COVID-19 pandemic. She won the "Game
Changer" category at the British Luxury Awards in November.
According to Edahn Golan Diamond Research & Data, the lab-grown
jewelry market has seen annual growth of 20% in recent years,
driving global profits to $15 billion.
As more producers enter the market, selling prices for lab-grown
diamonds have fallen, and brands are looking to differentiate
themselves.
At major retailer of lab-grown diamonds Pandora, head of
diamonds Joshua Braman said lab-grown gems could create extra
scope for jewelry design compared with mined diamonds, which can
be technically challenging to cut.
Another point of difference can be sustainability.
Pandora and Chan rely on suppliers who use technology to capture
carbon dioxide emissions that would otherwise be released into
the atmosphere in order to make diamonds, “so effectively taking
something negative and turning it into something positive,” Chan
said.
(Reporting by Lara Brehmer; editing by Barbara Lewis)
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