Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. However, buying diamonds can become an expensive affair. But now with increased awareness of how things are sourced, and furthermore technology helping us re-imagine and recreate things, lab diamonds or man-made diamonds have become a reality.
Situated at Bandra, Vandals founded by Vandana Jagwani, claims to be the first-ever retail outlet for lab-grown diamonds in India. Having a legacy in the jewellery business, Jagwani designs the pieces by combining a lineage in jewellery tradition with new-age capabilities of lab-grown diamonds.
Narrating her journey, she says, “Sometime back, I was doing a course on diamond grading, and at the end of the course, we were given a diamond. After we completed grading it like any other diamond, we were informed that it was a lab-grown one. This idea excited me and there was no looking back since then.”
She tells us more about these diamonds and how they are sustainable jewellery.
What are lab-grown diamonds?
Jagwani explains that these cultured diamonds are grown in highly controlled laboratory environments using advanced technological processes that replicate the natural conditions in which diamonds develop in the Earth’s crust. “These lab-grown diamonds are made up of the same material as natural diamonds, the only difference is that they are made in the lab under controlled supervision,” she explains. Since they are made from the same material these diamonds show the same characteristics as real diamonds.
Are they any different?
The young entrepreneur points out that even testing machines find it difficult to differentiate between a lab-grown diamond and a natural one. Telling us how lab-grown diamonds resemble real ones, she says that they are made with diamond seeds. “These diamonds display the same physical and optical characteristics, and have the same sparkle,” says Jagwani.
The only difference is the pricing. “Lab-grown diamonds are available at reasonable prices compared to their natural counterparts. She also says that it is a rather sustainable choice and a one that fits the budget.
It’s timeless
With people becoming more and more progressive, they are now open to trying new things. “It is a revolution where art comes together with technology for a progressive future,” says Jagwani.
Vandals, which also means disruption, is set to change and disrupt the game of how diamond jewellery was looked at. “I don’t want jewellery to be dated and restricted to a certain era, it has to be timeless and glorious,” says Jagwani, who believes in an all embracing definition of art, where every expression is a canvas. “This inclusive ethos of art and beauty is a starting point for a new vision. History is something that Vandals harnesses and draws inspiration from by going beyond what is expected of past generations,” she adds.
Vandals has 30 individual styles with each and every piece like graffiti encouraging you to tell a story of your own. Its universe draws the customer in multitudes of mediums with splashes of bright paint and mixed matter. Vandals advocates the philosophy of design telling a story and making a statement that can be interpreted in one’s own way. “The thought behind each facet, cut and groove is based on the tension between what is expected and what is possible, the resolution by creativity defined by human ingenuity and technology. The focus is to engineer jewellery with gemstones made by way of human genius,” she concludes.
