Are diamonds really ‘with no demolish in sight’?

When Gladys Babson Hannaford visited Florida Train College in 1960, her lectures weren’t exactly portion of the curriculum—and Hannaford, also known as the “Diamond Woman,” wasn’t your typical instructor. A diamond “professional” who gave loads of of “academic” talks on the gem stones yearly, Hannaford was once really employed by an ad company with a straightforward, if ambitious, mission: Place American females desire diamonds.

Diamonds aren’t rare, and their prices had been assign of living by at the time by the ad company’s glittering client, global diamond conglomerate De Beers. Nor had been diamond engagement rings a historic tradition within the U.S. But Hannaford preached that diamonds had been precious gem stones with major emotional and historic resonance. “The enduring quality of a diamond is expounded to a lasting bask in,” she told students, encouraging her female listeners to search files from diamond rings from their future fiancés.

Hannaford’s lectures had been comely one aspect of an ongoing, a long time-long advertising and marketing and marketing campaign to popularize diamond engagement rings. Nonetheless the now-mandatory items had been anything nonetheless faded when De Beers began promoting the worthy commodity as a rare image of romance.

Royal bask in tokens

The Indian subcontinent and South The US had been the realm’s major sources of diamonds except the Nineteenth century. Nonetheless despite the undeniable truth that the gem stones had been long known within the inclined world, they thoroughly caught on in western Europe initiating within the thirteenth century. Diamond chopping came into its beget at some point soon of the Renaissance, when artisans used contemporary tools to slash aspects into the unpolished and rough stones, bettering their sparkle and making ready them to be used in magnificent jewelry.

These contemporary faceted diamonds had been breathtakingly glowing. They had been also rare, turning into symbols of wealth and sumptuous for the few who could also give you the money for them. One such jewel was once portion of historic past’s first recorded diamond engagement ring, given by Archduke Maximilian, future Holy Roman Emperor, to Mary of Burgundy in 1477. That year, one in every of the archduke’s advisors reportedly wrote to inform him to dangle “a ring assign of living with a diamond and also a gold ring” nice on the lookout for his betrothal to his aristocratic supposed. Centuries later, mineralogist George Frederick Kunz saw the reward as proof that there was once already a vogue for diamond engagement rings among royals at the time.

Nonetheless that trend didn’t lengthen to typical Europeans, who exchanged all the things from iron rings to clothing and farm animals when they made up our minds to marry. In the intervening time, royals cherish Queen Victoria persisted exchanging treasured jewels for their betrothals. At her engagement in 1839, her supposed, Prince Albert, gave her an engagement ring assign of living with a jeweled snake, a favored image of eternal bask in at the time. The serpent was once crafted from gold and gigantic emerald, the queen’s birth stone, along with ruby eyes and a diamond mouth. (Victoria assign of living a series of jewelry trend fads at some point soon of her lifetime, and shall be credited with popularizing the white wedding dress.)

Discovering diamonds

In the 1860s, diamonds had been found on the South African farm of Johannes and Diederik de Beer, two Dutch settlers who later sold the mine on their property to a British firm. The mine that bore their name went on to be taken over by Cecil Rhodes, a British entrepreneur and infamous baby-kisser who began buying for up newly found mines and indirectly consolidated the pickle’s entire diamond swap. The conglomerate that resulted, De Beers, managed virtually all of the diamonds on this planet by the early 20^th century.

Nonetheless the discoveries presented a field for the swap: Due to the the South African discoveries, the worldwide offer of diamonds had elevated by orders of magnitude, and the firm indirectly owned up to 90 percent of the realm’s diamonds. That place De Beers within the at ease arrangement of by some skill upholding the gem stones’ financial price and their popularity as luxurious items regardless of a glut of the gem stones, especially within the early 20^th century as the World Wars and Enormous Despair dramatically diminished search files from in Europe.

As a result, De Beers and its then-proprietor, Ernest Oppenheimer, assign of living their sights on the United Said as an untapped market. Nonetheless diamond engagement rings had been mild anything nonetheless the norm in early 20^th-century The US. With the inventive minds of Philadelphia’s N.W. Ayer advertising and marketing company, alternatively, De Beers assign of living out to persuade Americans that diamonds had been a mandatory luxurious—one that symbolized eternal bask in and justified a high impress ticket.

Diamonds are with no demolish in sight

Beginning within the Nineteen Forties, the Ayers company bombarded American patrons with photos of diamonds and tales of their rarity and symbolism. Journal commercials showcased engaged socialites and their diamond engagement rings. The firm lent diamonds to properly-known Hollywood stars and showcased their jewelry and despatched representatives cherish the Diamond Woman to American females’s golf equipment, social groups, and even high colleges to highlight the gem stones and raze the subliminal connection between diamonds and marriage.

Royals received in on the act, with Queen Elizabeth visiting the De Beers mines in South Africa in 1947, and accepting a glittering diamond necklace from the executive of South Africa along with a six-carat diamond from De Beers. Elizabeth’s engagement ring—a reward from her fiancé, Prince Philip, was once designed by her future husband. It, too, featured a glittering provenance—the diamonds Philip utilized within the ring had been proficient to his mother within the make of a diamond and aquamarine tiara once owned by Tsar Nicholas of Russia. The iconic (and properly publicized) ring helped gasoline the overall public’s starvation for diamonds, and reminded patrons that men could also rep in on the act, too. De Beers pursued the male attitude, too, focusing on men by turning diamonds into symbols of a person’s financial success and social standing—all represented by the rock on his supposed bride’s finger.

The advertising and marketing and marketing advertising and marketing and marketing campaign was once so ubiquitous that it resulted in a slogan widely regarded as the most a success of all time. In 1948, Ayers copywriter Mary Frances Gerety—who never married in her lifetime—came up with the “A Diamond is Eternally” ticket, which is mild used by De Beers and the diamond swap this day. It isn’t comely pithy, students show: The slogan “also [conveys] the foundation that the ring have to mild not be resold thanks to its sentimental price,” thereby encouraging the buy of just a few diamonds within the case of just a few marriages.

De Beers’ purpose was once ambitious: to flip diamonds correct into a “psychological necessity” and raze a diamond a will have to dangle engagement merchandise regardless of income, financial pressures, or impress. And it worked. Basically based on the World Diamond Council, global jewelry sales are price bigger than $72 billion a year, with the U.S. representing the realm’s largest diamond market. In the intervening time, De Beers not controls the bulk of the realm’s diamonds thanks to contemporary mine discoveries, competitive market forces, and the emergence of lab-grown diamonds.

A transient jaunt spherical Instagram reveals that the diamond engagement ring pattern isn’t going wherever any time soon. Surely, social media is now regarded as a prime driver of diamond sales, with a majority of newly engaged couples reporting they stammer their engagement on social media. Despite a reported decline within the sale of engagement rings since the covid-19 pandemic, diamond retail outlets are depending on a turnaround. Because the Diamond Woman acknowledged aid in 1960, “Diamonds are the backbone of a jeweler’s industrial”—all thanks to some savvy advertising and marketing and marketing.