Editor’s Note
**Editor’s Note:** In a post-COVID luxury market, colored gemstones are surging as affluent buyers seek distinctiveness over traditional diamonds. This piece highlights how one dealer has spent years building traceability into their supply chain—a move increasingly demanded by younger designers. As consumer consciousness grows, transparency may become the new benchmark for credibility in high-end jewelry.
And in this post-COVID environment, the market cap for gemstones has grown tremendously. We have taken a significant share of luxury jewelry in a post-COVID world because people with means are looking for unusual things. How many diamond studs can you buy? With color there are a million ways to reinvent a look.
I can’t speak on behalf of other dealers. It’s not a new conversation for us. We’ve been implementing traceability protocols in our business for the last four to five years, to the best of our ability. I’m meeting more and more young designers who are highly sensitive to where the materials are coming from. Maybe the general ecosystem doesn’t care about this, but if you can’t have a thoughtful conversation with your end users about where your goods are from, you will be in a difficult position in four to five years.
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By Victoria Gomelsky | October 18, 2021
If you love colored stones and you don’t follow Dave Bindra (aka @gemfluencer, pictured above) on Instagram, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
The vice president of B & B Fine Gems in Los Angeles is a prolific and talented social media star whose feed is dominated by mesmerizing pictures and videos of his company’s fine, deeply saturated colored stones paired with a seemingly unlimited number of equally colorful sneakers, all jazzed up by a funky soundtrack of hip-hop beats.
JCK recently caught up with Bindra to talk all things color.
Below, Bindra recaps the shows, gives us a glimpse of the stones and colors he thinks will trend over the holiday, and tells us why cryptocurrencies scare him but lab-grown gems do not.
We exhibited at AGTA, in a ballroom in the Encore. It was really elegant, the ballroom was beautiful, but it was a tough show for most people given the location and the general challenges of doing a trade show during these times.
But we did very well because there’s a lot of demand for fine quality color, and there isn’t a lot of merchandise on the market. It’s the one time where being inventory rich has paid off, in a post-COVID environment. High-end consumers are looking for rare and unusual items. There was an incredible tidal wave of new money created during COVID. And people still aren’t really traveling that much, so that kind of discretionary spending is still going to the luxury sector.
10 ct. pastel blue Sri Lankan sapphire set in a platinum ring (photo by Dave Bindra)
Denver was also really interesting. The show was good for us, but I didn’t meet anybody new. But I think it has potential. I would have loved to have seen more designers and retailers.
No consumers could come to our section, so we weren’t expecting that. There was a kind of an uproar about gem dealers exhibiting where the public is, but that’s kind of silly because end users find their way to these shows if they want to, and if you’re a responsible wholesaler, you respect your customers and do your due diligence. A lot of people are just afraid of change, but things are changing.
The potential is there with HardRock because there’s a lot of crossover in the worlds of minerals and colored gemstones, and Denver has this Tucson-esque energy to it. It’s a really relaxed environment. There’s a tremendous opportunity here because if there’s no September show in Hong Kong, Denver has the opportunity to be a major colored gemstone show in the fall—globally, not just in the U.S.
Sapphires have come back in a really strong way. Classic blue sapphires, purples, pinks. There’s really strong demand for padparadschas, which are hard to find. Pastels have done really well in the last three to four months in most stones but specifically in sapphires.
Tray of pastel blue Sri Lankan sapphires ranging from 4 to 10 cts. (photo by Dave Bindra)
Everyone is still looking for these blue-green sapphires. They’re so ugly if you ask me, but people love them. Red to red-pink spinels are really having a moment—that has a lot to do with the fact that there aren’t a lot of fine ruby or pink sapphire available. These stones are filling a void, and people love them.
These really nice spinels. We’re really well merchandised in spinel right now. That’s a blessing for us, because there aren’t a lot of people who have a depth of supply. I would say paraiba tourmaline, but I don’t have any in stock anymore.
Neon reddish 6 ct.-plus pink spinel from the Mahenge deposit in Tanzania (photo by Dave Bindra)
I wish I had more paraiba, both Brazilian and Mozambique, but both are equally difficult to come by now. They are the easiest stones in the marketplace to sell if you have something nice. And the prices have gone bonkers. Also really interesting for consumers are rare collector stones like demantoid garnets and Brazilian alexandrites.
Tucson is our next big show. I’m hoping I can go to Asia in next the five to six months. I really miss it. I haven’t been to Asia in about two years. It’s funny, going to the East Coast now feels like going to Asia—it’s so exotic and so nice to get out of your environment.
