GemGenève: a missed opportunity
For its 8th edition from May 9 to 12, 2024 in Geneva, this jewelry trade show missed a major opportunity in our opinion: to showcase laboratory-made ethical gemstones. Indeed, having been present on the Geneva scene for several years now, this “small show among the big ones that has managed to find its place”, as its co-founder Ronny Totah mentions in an article, enabled many visitors to marvel at the jewels on display. Conferences were also held on site, notably on opals, which were given pride of place at this year's event. We had the opportunity to read the article in question and decided to react to it.
Unfortunately, a ban was imposed on cultured gems. Excluding exhibitors offering them is a lost opportunity to get up to speed on an existing market. Competition with these new gems is fierce, and the supply and demand for mining gems has been shaken with the arrival of these novelties on the market. This stubbornness underlines the dualistic vision of the organizers, revealing a logic in which only mined diamonds are genuine. In fact, technology now makes it possible to offer stones with the same qualitative characteristics as those extracted from mines, with several advantages: traceability, durability and the assurance that they have not been involved in human violence. To say that it's “nonsense” to talk about color and purity for laboratory-grown diamonds is not fair, because laboratory-grown diamonds have exactly the same specific characteristics as so-called “natural” diamonds.
The Geneva show's position is clear: it sides with mined stones, with all that this entails: violence, poverty and danger for miners. Yet ethical gems (i.e. laboratory-created rubies, emeralds and sapphires) are increasingly in demand for their sustainability. Indeed, a growing popular awareness among customers is now affecting the jewelry industry, forcing it to rethink its practices. Offering laboratory-grown stones is a real stand against the problems caused by mining, making customers full players in the sustainability process. Today, there is a real crisis in mining diamonds, and it's largely thanks to these new ethical stones. Indeed, we are convinced that ethical gemstones are revolutionizing the world of jewelry, while also being part of its future.
Discrimination against laboratory-created diamonds is therefore unfortunately still with us, and it's interesting to note that at other international fairs such as those in Asia and the USA, these stones are well and truly present. This missed opportunity for Geneva, an international city, is truly regrettable and demonstrates a strong distinction with laboratory-created diamonds, which are qualitatively identical to those from mines. Banning them excludes Switzerland, and Geneva in particular, from the existing global market, and turning a blind eye to this reality is not, in our view, a solution. Instead of what we call closure, we want to promote openness to what we see as the future: cultured stones. We want to highlight this capacity for innovation and are convinced that these stones represent the future. Excluding them from this international show is a small gain in time in the face of the inevitable: the democratization of these gems, made possible by growing customer awareness.
(Credit photo : Anokhi De Silva)