Jewelry Designers Find Great Value In Recycled Diamonds & Partnering With Suppliers Like White Pine

 

Jewelry designers have a lot to manage when developing their brand, whether newbie or veteran in the business. Creating compelling designs and customer engagement demand their full attention for success.

 

For new designers, especially those who are not generational in the traditionally family run diamond and jewelry industry, it can be challenging to make connections and find vendors who will work with you, especially when you’re new on the scene.

 

New York City jewelry designer Lauren Goodmay found that to be the case when she started over two years ago to build her brand, Good May Come, which launched in February, and is available online and at Studio Mega in Soho. “If you’re not a generational jeweler, I think it's hard to get places to take you seriously, especially when you’re starting off.”

 

Goodmay was delighted to find as one of her first vendors White Pine Wholesale, which was eager to work with her. “I was looking for a supplier that could provide me with ethically sourced natural diamonds. You can’t get more sustainable than recycled natural diamonds. I’m against lab-grown diamonds.”

 

Investment pieces are big for Goodmay, whose work features recycled natural diamonds and 18K gold, retailing from $1,200 to $30,000. Her designs reinvent timeless styles with a crisp, contemporary aesthetic that explores asymmetry, negative space and strong lines that reveal an understanding of the effect of jewelry on the body.

 

Partnering for Success

 

One of the many things Goodmay appreciates about working with a vendor like White Pine is that it looks out for her best interest. “They look for the most cost effective way of getting the job done. They have great in-house jewelers who work with me to bring my design vision to life.” 

 

Established in 2010 and based in New York City, White Pine buys previously owned natural diamond stock of all types and re-cutting it to create tightly calibrated diamond assortments (VG+ makes, GIA standard grading) to distribute to jewelry designers and custom jewelers in North America.

 

The company provides on-demand delivery for popular sizes, colors and clarities of diamonds. Turnaround is fast and prices are very competitive, with same day pickup at the New York office or guaranteed next day delivery, with no minimum order. Orders can be placed by millimeter size, number of stones, or carat weight. Most colors and clarities are in stock so jewelry designers can get exactly what they need, when they need it.

 

White Pine can handle special orders, and achieve any cut grade, including triple excellent, cites CEO Benjamin Burne. “If a stone is at a critical weight, we provide options so the jeweler can determine the best economic outcome.”

 

Goodmay appreciates this guidance, noting that when you cast something there’s wiggle room in the size of diamond, so it depends on how important carat weight is when you sell it.

  

Jewelry designers and custom jewelers use White Pine’s sorting services to group recycled diamonds into usable assortments. “We customize assortments, at their direction to ensure they maximize the value of their parcels,” says Burne. “It saves them time preparing the diamond bags, and money avoiding inventory and the associated costs. Every diamond will be used in the job, no waste.”

 

Goodmay’s jewelry designs are made in New York City — benefiting from her relationship with White Pine, which offers a range of first class production services, including in-house casting, diamond setting, and CAD. She finds White Pine to be easy to work with and very competitively priced for a range of cost and time saving services for designers to outsource.

 

Because White Pine is re-cutting, sorting and testing thousands of carats of recycled diamonds a year, it can provide these services cost effectively to jewelry designers, custom jewelers and boutique brands. Burne notes that outsourcing production tasks can be a smart way for designers and custom jewelers to lower costs and streamline operations. “Our team can guide jewelry designers and custom jewelers through the process, from developing the CAD file to casting, setting and finishing the piece.”

 

Sustainable Source

 

A growing number of jewelry designers have been approaching White Pine for recycled diamonds, Burne shares, as well as other production services. “Millennial consumers, and particularly Gen Zers, are drawn to sustainable products like recycled diamonds, the most sustainable, ethical diamond product that has the highest value retention as a natural diamond.”

 

Goodmay finds this among her customer base that she describes as “young, urban, professional women who care about how products are made, are fashionable but not trendy, and want timeless diamond designs that can be styled up or down.” She sees this as the future of the jewelry industry.

 

More jewelry designers are using and promoting recycled diamonds as a sustainable part of their brand, such as Bario Neal, Catbird, Ashley Zhang, Ecksand, and Monica Rich Kosann. Rony Vardi for Catbird shares on its website that after years of looking for responsibly mined stones she found a better option in brilliant-cut recycled diamonds.

 

Recycled diamonds is a category that many jewelry designers may never have considered before because they perceive that what is available on the market is of inferior cut and quality to newly manufactured stones. What they may not know is that the majority of reclaimed diamonds are re-manufactured to modern cut specifications and are as good as new.

 

While some jewelers prefer and seek out older diamond cuts for their designs, many promote that their recycled diamonds are re-cut and re-polished to modern quality standards before being set in a new jewel.

 

Whether recycled diamonds are part of your brand identity or not, jewelry designers can benefit from reliable access to sustainably sourced natural diamond inventory — verified, certified recycled natural diamonds in the most in-demand sizes, colors and clarities with on-demand delivery. Partnering with a supplier like White Pine makes available a range of cost saving, profitable services that can save jewelry designers time and money, while increasing opportunities to close sales and increase profits.