
 
 De Beers is introducing a new line of man-made diamonds, which will range in price from $200 to $800. (Courtesy of Lightbox) 
 
 De Beers, the diamond giant that for years has promoted gemstones as pricey and precious, said it will begin selling man-made diamonds that cost about a tenth of the price of a mined gem. 
 
 The line of pink, blue and white laboratory-grown diamonds, which De Beers will sell under a new brand, Lightbox Jewelry, is designed to persuade shoppers to think of synthetic diamonds as a “fun piece of fashion jewelry” instead of a lifelong investment, executives said. Prices will start at as low as $200 to appeal to a new generation of shoppers. 
 
 “We see this is as opening up new gifting occasions where perhaps a natural diamond would say too much or, frankly, be too expensive,” said Steve Coe, general manager of Lightbox Jewelry. “This is something you might buy for a best friend or for a Sweet 16.” 
 
 The shift to synthetic is an unexpected move for the world’s largest diamond miner, which for decades has relied on the perceived scarcity of mined diamonds to drive up values and has railed against synthetic diamonds as one of the biggest threats to the industry. 
 
 But now, after 70 years of telling consumers “a diamond is forever,” De Beers is rethinking its message. 
 
 The line of man-made diamonds “may not be forever, but is perfect for right now,” Bruce Cleaver, chief executive of De Beers Group, said in a statement. 
 
 The lower-priced jewelry is as much about changing consumer habits and preferences as it is about economics, industry experts say. Today’s 20- and 30-somethings — bogged down by heavy student debt loads and stagnant wages — have less spending power than their predecessors did, but they have different values, too: A recent study by De Beers found that millennials would rather splurge on overseas holidays, weekend getaways and electronics than on diamonds. 
 
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 Lab-grown diamonds — which are created in hot, pressurized chambers over weeks, instead of a billion years underground — have been growing in popularity as Americans spend less on traditional diamonds. The stones are increasingly marketed to younger shoppers as a cheaper, ethically sourced alternative to mined diamonds. But their chemical makeup is the same (all diamonds are made of just one element: carbon), and experts say they are indistinguishable to the naked eye. 
 
 “From our perspective, synthetic diamonds are diamonds,” Stephen ­Morisseau, a spokesman for the Gemological Institute of America, a nonprofit organization that oversees the international diamond grading system, told The Washington Post last year. “They’re not fakes. They’re not cubic zirconias. They have all the same physical and chemical properties of a mined diamond.” 
 
 Sales of traditional diamonds have stalled in recent years, leading to a steady drop in prices. Overall, the price of high-quality diamonds has fallen by as much as 80 percent over the past 30 years, when adjusted for inflation, according to the RapNet Diamond Index, an industry benchmark. This year, De Beers says it has seen a 6 percent drop in rough-diamond sales. 
 
 “It is clear that volatility in the diamond sector is not a short-term phenomenon but the new normal,” Cleaver wrote in a 2016 De Beers report. “The pace of change is quickening and, as a sector, we cannot look to the past for solutions to tomorrow’s challenges.” 
 
 With Lightbox Jewelry, De Beers says it hopes to tap into a new market. The line will include earrings and necklaces — but no engagement rings — that cost between $300 to $900, making it a more affordable alternative to traditional diamonds. Plus, executives say, the pink- and blue-hued stones add an element of whimsy. (“In natural diamonds, colored stones are very rare and extremely expensive,” Coe said.) 
 
 Although De Beers has long resisted selling jewelry made with synthetic diamonds, it has been creating lab-made diamonds for industrial use for more than 50 years. The company’s Element Six business, based in England, is the world’s largest supplier of lab-grown diamonds for drilling, mining and semiconductors. 
 
 That expertise, the company says, allows it to undercut its competitors on the price of lab-grown diamonds. (At the Diamond Foundry, a California-based company that counts actor Leonardo DiCaprio among its investors, for example, one-carat synthetic diamonds start at about $3,500 — more than four times what Lightbox plans to charge.) 
 
 “We want to be transparent but accessible,” said Coe of Lightbox. “What we’re doing is giving consumers what they want: diamonds that are new and different, at an affordable price.” 
 
 Lightbox Jewelry will be available online in September, and executives say they plan to sell the line in stores by the end of the year. The stones are created in the company’s labs in the United Kingdom, although De Beers is also investing $94 million in a new production facility near Portland, Ore., that is expected to open in 2020. 
 
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 De Beers, which almost single-handedly created the allure of diamonds as rare, expensive and the symbol of eternal love, now wants to sell you some party jewelry that is anything but. 
 
 The company announced today that it will start selling man-made diamond jewelry at a fraction of the price of mined gems, marking a historic shift for the world’s biggest diamond miner, which vowed for years that it wouldn’t sell stones created in laboratories. The strategy is designed to undercut rival lab-diamond makers, who having been trying to make inroads into the $80 billion gem industry. 
 
 Synthetically produced diamonds at a De Beers lab. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg 
 
 De Beers will target younger spenders with its new diamond brand and try to capture customers that have been resistant to splurging on expensive jewelry. The company is betting that it can split the market -- with mined gems in luxury settings and engagement rings at the top, and lab-made fashion jewelry aimed at millennials at the bottom. 
 
 ‘Not Special’ 
 
 “Lab grown are not special, they’re not real, they’re not unique. You can make exactly the same one again and again,” Bruce Cleaver, chief executive officer of De Beers, said in an interview Tuesday. 
 
 Unlike imitation gems such as cubic zirconia, diamonds grown in labs have the same physical characteristics and chemical makeup as mined stones. They’re made from a carbon seed placed in a microwave chamber and superheated into a glowing plasma ball. The process creates particles that can eventually crystallize into diamonds in weeks. The technology is so advanced that experts need a machine to distinguish between synthesized and mined gems. 
 
 A host of lab-grown diamond makers and retailers have sprung up in recent years. Diamond Foundry, one of the biggest producers, grows diamonds in a California laboratory and has been backed by Leonardo DiCaprio. Warren Buffett’s Helzberg’s Diamond Shops Inc. also sells the stones. 
 
 Customers are currently “confused” by the difference between mined and lab-produced diamonds, Cleaver said. De Beers is hoping to create big price gap with its new product, which will sell under the name Lightbox in the U.S. A 1-carat man-made diamond sells for about $4,000 and a similar natural diamond fetches roughly $8,000. The lab diamonds from De Beers will sell for about $800 a carat. 
 
 Lowest Cost 
 
 Still, De Beers says that its move isn’t to disrupt existing lab-diamond producers, but create a small, profitable business in its own right. 
 
 “Given we are the lowest-cost producer, we can make a good business out of this,” Cleaver said. “We have the tools, why wouldn’t we do this?” 
 
 De Beers is so adamant that the man-made diamonds are not competing with mined stones that it will not grade them in the traditional way. That’s a stark contrast to current man-made sellers who offer ratings such as clarity and color, replicating terminology used for natural stones. 
 
 “We’re not grading our lab-grown diamonds because we don’t think they deserve to be graded,” Cleaver said. “They’re all the same.” 
 
 The pricing strategy will also be different. De Beers plans to charge $200 for a quarter-carat, $400 for a half and $800 for a carat, another sharp break from natural stones that rise exponentially in price the bigger the diamond gets. 
 
 Man-Made Gems 
 
 While De Beers has never sold man-made diamonds for jewelry before, it’s very good at making them. The company’s Element Six unit is one of the world’s leading producers of synthetic diamonds, which are mostly used for industrial purposes. It has also been producing gem-quality stones for years to help it tell the difference between natural and man-made types and to reassure consumers that they’re buying the real thing. 
 
 Man-made gems currently make up a small part of the diamond market, but demand is increasing. Global diamond production was about 142 million carats last year, according to analyst Paul Zimnisky. That compares with lab production of less than 4.2 million carats, according to Bonas & Co. 
 
 De Beers has been researching lab-made diamonds since the end of World War II and accelerated its work after a Swedish company synthesized the first diamond in 1953. The company has focused on lab diamonds for industrial uses, but also kept investing in technology for jewelry-grade gems. 
 
 The shift to lab-diamond jewelry comes at a sensitive time for De Beers and its relationship with Botswana, the source of three-quarters of its diamonds. The two have a sales agreement that lets the company market and sell gems from Botswana, giving De Beers its power over global prices. The deal will soon be up for negotiation and Botswana is likely to push for more concessions. 
 
 On Tuesday, De Beers said it had extensive talks with Botswana about the decision to sell man-made diamonds and the country supports the move.
– De Beers' diamonds won't come exclusively from mines anymore. In a significant about-face, the company announced Tuesday it is getting into the synthetic diamond game with Lightbox, its new man-made diamond brand that will offer full carat stones from roughly $800 beginning in September. That price point is essentially the point: While one of De Beers' genuine one carat diamonds costs about $8,000, Bloomberg reports similar lab-made ones currently run about $4,000. That means synthetics made by De Beers' rivals (among them Warren Buffett's Helzberg's Diamond Shops and Leonardo DiCaprio-funded Diamond Foundry) will be extremely expensive in comparison and the gulf between synthetic and real prices will widen, making the two categories more distinct. CNN notes it's a big change for a company whose execs had pledged to never sell lab-grown stones; it even created a machine whose purpose is rooting out such fakes. It justified the change by citing consumer demand, with CEO Bruce Cleaver calling Lightbox "affordable fashion jewelry that may not be forever, but is perfect for right now." He called a spade a spade: "Lab grown are not special, they're not real, they’re not unique. You can make exactly the same one again and again." Lightbox's GM similarly painted the stones as low-brow in comments to the Washington Post: "This is something you might buy for a best friend or for a Sweet 16." The diamonds will be available in white, pink, and blue and made in a facility in Portland, Ore., that De Beers plans to sink nearly $100 million into.