For anyone considering a diamond purchase, this amazing article from the February 1982 Atlantic should be required reading. (Yes, it’s 24 years old. It hasn’t gone bad yet.) It’s a detailed history of the De Beers cartel and how — through market manipulations and genius marketing — they’ve been able to turn the purchase of compressed carbon into a statement of love. (Not to mention make roughly a gajillion dollars along the way.)

The article’s long, but absolutely worth it. Take this excerpt on how De Beers pushed engagement diamonds into Japan:

Until the mid-1960s, Japanese parents arranged marriages for their children through trusted intermediaries. The ceremony was consummated, according to Shinto law, by the bride and groom drinking rice wine from the same wooden bowl. There was no tradition of romance, courtship, seduction, or prenuptial love in Japan; and none that required the gift of a diamond engagement ring. Even the fact that millions of American soldiers had been assigned to military duty in Japan for a decade had not created any substantial Japanese interest in giving diamonds as a token of love.

J. Walter Thompson began its campaign by suggesting that diamonds were a visible sign of modern Western values. It created a series of color advertisements in Japanese magazines showing beautiful women displaying their diamond rings. All the women had Western facial features and wore European clothes. Moreover, the women in most of the advertisements were involved in some activity — such as bicycling, camping, yachting, ocean swimming, or mountain climbing — that defied Japanese traditions. In the background, there usually stood a Japanese man, also attired in fashionable European clothes. In addition, almost all of the automobiles, sporting equipment, and other artifacts in the picture were conspicuous foreign imports. The message was clear: diamonds represent a sharp break with the Oriental past and a sign of entry into modern life.

The campaign was remarkably successful. Until1959, the importation of diamonds had not even been permitted by the postwar Japanese government. When the campaign began, in 1967, not quite 5 percent of engaged Japanese women received a diamond engagement ring. By 1972, the proportion had risen to 27 percent. By 1978, half of all Japanese women who were married wore a diamond; by 1981, some 60 percent of Japanese brides wore diamonds. In a mere fourteen years, the 1,500-year Japanese tradition had been radically revised. Diamonds became a staple of the Japanese marriage. Japan became the second largest market, after the United States, for the sale of diamond engagement rings.

It will be very interesting in the coming decade to see how De Beers responds to the threat of synthetic diamonds — which are made in a lab but visually indistinguishable from the stuff that’s dug out of African mines. (We’re not taking cubic zirconium here — these are real diamonds.)

Anyway, popular culture may be catching up to the diamond debate. First there was Kanye. Then there’s Blood Diamond, the Leonardo DiCaprio/Jennifer Connelly/Djimon Hounsou movie coming out this Christmas. Apparently, De Beers is worried that the film might win hearts and minds.

For what it’s worth, I saw the trailer last week and ohmygoodness did it look bad. DiCaprio, whom I normally have no problem with, has an awful South African accent and acts with the broadest of broad strokes. Maybe De Beers doesn’t have anything to worry about after all.

Bonus: Guess which one of these two sites — diamondfacts.org and realdiamondfacts.org — is funded by the diamond industry.

17 October 2006

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