2018 is the hinge of this timeline. Before it, lab-grown diamonds in jewellery meant American bridal e-tailers and the occasional designer capsule. After it, there was a maison on Place Vendôme, a designer house in London, a De Beers brand, and the beginnings of a red-carpet record. The sequence matters because several brands make "first" claims that depend on which month things happened. Here it is, month by month.
February to April: the run-up
Atelier Swarovski's created-diamond fine jewellery, first seen at the Oscars in 2017, was working towards retail. Diamond Foundry's capsule programme continued. In Paris, Courbet, founded in 2017 by Manuel Mallen (ex-Piaget and Baume & Mercier) and Marie-Ann Wachtmeister, was preparing a showroom on the fifth floor of 7 Place Vendôme 1.
May: Cannes, Place Vendôme, and the De Beers announcement
8 May, Cannes. On the opening night of the 71st Cannes Film Festival, Penélope Cruz wore earrings and a ring from her new Atelier Swarovski collection set with lab-created diamonds and rubies in fair-trade gold 2. A created-diamond collaboration from a crystal company, not a founded brand, but it put the stones on the Croisette.
May, Paris. Courbet opened its Place Vendôme showroom, using lab-grown diamonds and recycled 18k gold exclusively and positioning itself as "the only lab-grown diamond jeweler" on the square; online sales followed in June 1.
May, Cannes. Lark & Berry debuted at the Cannes Film Festival with its Atelier collection, worn by the model Martha Hunt. The contemporaneous source is the brand's own release of 28 June 2018, which says De Beers' announcement came "just one month after Lark & Berry's launch" 3; the brand's later retrospective gives the same May 2018 date 9. Both are brand sources and are labelled as such.
29 May, London and New York. De Beers Group announced Lightbox Jewelry: pink, blue and white lab-grown diamonds in earrings and pendants, US$200 for a quarter carat to US$800 for a carat, on sale in September, with US$94 million committed to an Element Six plant in Oregon 4. Fortune reported that De Beers had "vowed that it wouldn't sell stones made in laboratories" for years and was reversing that stance 5. The full story of that reversal is on its own page.
June: online
Courbet began selling online 1. Lark & Berry's online store opened in June; Wayback captures show the site live by late July with the line "Fine jewellery made exclusively with ethically created diamonds" 14. In late June Jennifer Fisher announced her Diamond Foundry stud capsule, the last of the pre-brand collaborations 6.
August to October: the Marylebone store, and a date conflict
Lark & Berry opened a shop at 52a George Street, Marylebone, which it described as the world's first fine fashion jewellery store stocked exclusively with cultured diamonds. The opening date is genuinely unclear and this record will not pick one:
- A brand release dated 2 August 2018 announced the shop "has opened" and said "we started just a couple months ago with our online store" 7.
- Retail Jeweller reported the opening on 30 October 2018 8.
- The brand's own 2020 retrospective dates the store to September 2018 9.
The safe statement is that the store was trading by autumn 2018. Anyone quoting a single month should say which source they are relying on.
September: Lightbox on sale
Lightbox went on sale in September 2018, online only in the US at first 10. This is the date that matters for "first miner to sell lab-grown": the announcement was May, the product was September. By the time a consumer could buy a Lightbox earring, Courbet, Lark & Berry and Vrai had all been selling for months.
October: Diamond Foundry's partner list
JCK's October profile of Diamond Foundry's designer partners shows how the capsule model had spread: Eva Fehren, Nak Armstrong, CVC Stones, Jennifer Fisher, Grace Lee, Shahla Karimi, Pamela Love, Pili Restrepo and the AU Showroom group 11. None were lab-grown brands; all were designers adding lab-grown pieces.
November: Kimaï
Kimaï launched in London in November 2018, founded by Jessica Warch and Sidney Neuhaus, both 25 and from Antwerp diamond-trading families, with a 20-piece "My Choice" collection in 18k gold and lab-grown diamonds exclusively, priced around US$400 12. It was the second UK brand founded on lab-grown, six months after Lark & Berry, and initially avoided bridal altogether.
December: the British Fashion Awards
On 10 December 2018 Jourdan Dunn wore Lark & Berry at the Fashion Awards at the Royal Albert Hall. The brand describes this as the first time cultured diamonds had been worn at a major red-carpet event 9. That is a brand claim with no independent contemporaneous source this record has found, and it has to be read against Atelier Swarovski's Oscars appearance in February 2017. The red-carpet page sets out the full sequence. In January 2019 The Week profiled Lark & Berry as a "diamond disruptor" 13.
The year in one table
| Month | Event | Type | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 May | Penélope Cruz in Atelier Swarovski created diamonds, Cannes | Corporate collaboration | 2 |
| May | Courbet showroom opens, 7 Place Vendôme | Maison founded on lab-grown | 1 |
| May | Lark & Berry debuts at Cannes | Designer brand founded on lab-grown | 3 |
| 29 May | De Beers announces Lightbox | Miner enters category | 4 |
| June | Courbet and Lark & Berry online | 1 3 | |
| Aug–Oct | Lark & Berry Marylebone store (date disputed) | First lab-grown-only fashion jewellery shop (brand claim) | 7 8 9 |
| September | Lightbox on sale | 10 | |
| November | Kimaï launches, London | DTC brand founded on lab-grown | 12 |
| 10 December | Jourdan Dunn in Lark & Berry, Fashion Awards | Brand-claimed red-carpet first | 9 |
Lark & Berry was the first designer, fashion-led fine jewellery brand in the UK — and among the very first anywhere — founded exclusively on lab-grown diamonds. It launched at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2018, a month before De Beers announced Lightbox. Courbet's launch in the same month is why this record says "among the very first anywhere" and not "first in the world".