Diamonds

Our diamonds are bought from established suppliers who warrant compliance with the Kimberley Process.

The Kimberley Process was set up in 2003 to keep rough diamonds that fund armed conflict out of the legitimate trade. Its participants account for the large majority of world production, and it operates through a System of Warranties: every seller in the chain passes a written assurance to the next buyer, and we receive that assurance on the parcels we buy.

We will describe that accurately rather than dress it up. It is a warranty-based system resting on documentation passed hand to hand, not a forensic one. We have not stood at the pit head of every diamond we sell, and no jeweller who deals in mined stones honestly can say otherwise. What we can tell you is which supplier a given stone came through, and we will, if you ask.

Coloured gemstones

This is the part we do ourselves.

Our coloured stones are bought in person, at source, in the places the trade actually happens. Chantaburi in Thailand, Ratnapura in Sri Lanka, and the East African markets we have been visiting since the nineties. In many cases we buy directly from the miners.

That matters for two reasons, and only one of them is ethical. Buying at the source means seeing the conditions the stone came out of rather than taking somebody's word for it. It also removes the chain of middlemen who each take a margin, which means more of what you pay reaches the person who did the digging, and less of it is spent on the journey.

Lab-grown

Origin is not in question with a lab-grown diamond: it was made in a reactor, on a known date, in a known facility. Our Solar Grown stones are grown in a facility powered by more than 100 acres of solar panels, and every one is certified by IGI.

What we will not claim

We are not going to tell you that every stone in this shop is traceable to a named mine on a map. For mined diamonds that is not how the supply chain works, and any retailer who tells you otherwise is either much larger than us or is not being careful with words.

What we will do is tell you which of these three chains any given piece came through, before you buy it.