TMZ Talks Lab-Grown Diamonds with Jean Dousset

Jean Dousset debunks common misconceptions surrounding lab-grown diamonds with Harvey Levin and Charles Latibeaudiere on TMZ. Read below for the full transcript.

 

[TMZ - Charlie] Everyone is excited about the holiday season. Did you know that this is also engagement season? I did not know this. I was doing a little research...

[TMZ - Harvey] I thought like spring was.

[TMZ - C] No, most engagements happen between November and Valentine's Day.

[TMZ - H] I learned something today!

[TMZ - C] Uh huh. So, uh, a lot of people may be thinking about making the big leap and spending a lot of money on a diamond ring, and...

[TMZ - H] Or 

[TMZ - C] Or do you get a diamond straight from the ground or do you get these new lab-grown diamonds, which have become very popular and I think you can see why they are.

[TMZ - H] They look like diamonds!

[TMZ - C] They look like real diamonds. And I don't really know the whole process that goes into it.

[TMZ - H] Do you call them real diamonds? Do you not call them real diamonds? 

[TMZ - C] To me, I would say it is not a real diamond.

[TMZ - H] If you give somebody one of these, um, do you have to disclose that it's lab-grown?

[TMZ - C] Do you get a piece of paper from the ground? Do you get a piece of paper to clarify? 

[TMZ - H] I'm serious. There are a lot of questions about this.

[TMZ - C] Well, uh, we are not experts in the field but, uh, we have someone joining us who is. Jean Dousset, a great-great-grandson I believe of Cartier. So he knows the business, knows the diamond industry, and has his own shop here where he has decided to sell exclusively...

[TMZ - H] The lab-grown diamond. How about that?

[TMZ - C] Yeah, which I think is interesting. So, uh, let's find out more. Jean Dousset, welcome to TMZ Live.

[JD] Thank you. Good afternoon. Hi guys.

[TMZ - H] Hey, um, God I've got so many questions about this. First of all, are these real diamonds? 

[JD] Yes

[TMZ - C] I said that they're not in the tease there because that's how I feel.

[TMZ - H] Well I didn't think they were either because I thought a diamond is something that comes from the ground, from yeah. The earth.

[JD] Right, so there's two myths that, uh, people always ask. Is it a real diamond? Yes, it's exactly the same. As a matter of fact, lab-grown diamonds are graded exactly like natural diamonds on the same scale by the same organizations. Gemological Institute of America. And it is a diamond, and I cannot tell them apart, nor the oldest, oldest, most seasoned diamond dealer, cutter, manufacturer in the world.

[TMZ - H] Really? Wow.

[JD] This is why I made that pivot because it is unmistakably a diamond.

[TMZ - C] Oh wow. Alright. 

[TMZ - H] What about cost? I wanna know, like, is it cheaper? I mean, I know there are certain benefits here, but is it cheaper? Is it the same? What?

[JD] Yeah, well the first and foremost attractive thing about lab-grown diamonds is the value proposition. A lab-grown diamond is about 10 times less expensive than a natural diamond.

[JD] And if you ask me about my career, I sat in front of people that were just compromising, agonizing over the price of diamonds, which were sort of like obscene and keeping people away from enjoying the mystique and the beauty of diamonds. And then lab grown has created this liberation. Now you can have the quality that you want. You can have the size that you want, because everybody wants to have a decently big diamond, right?

[TMZ - C] Mhmm, yeah.

[JD] And at a price that makes sense. So lab-grown diamonds are just re-setting the scale. It's incredible.

[TMZ - C] Wow. I would imagine that the people who are still taking diamonds out of the earth are not happy about this because, correct me if I'm right, Jean, but the reason for the price of diamonds - one, is that they're rare and how much time it takes for one to actually develop in the ground and then all of the labor, which is also problematic, that goes into removing them. So all of that is why the diamond industry says yes, we're gonna charge you, you know, this bucket load of money for this diamond that's about this big.

[JD] That's entirely right. 

[TMZ - C] So when you remove all of that, um, do they even have, how do they even compete?

[JD] Well, I think the diamond, natural diamond industry is in the fight for its life, really. Because when you compare both, when people see it in person and they can compare and that there's nothing to compare, then they adopt lab-grown diamonds at an incredibly high pace. And therefore they're not interested in spending 10 times more for something that has been extracted from the ground and this is where we lead into the second part of why lab-grown are now cool.

[JD] They're not trying to be something they're not, they're cool because they're not extracted from the ground. It removes the concern that people had about ethical and blood diamond, you must've heard about that?

[TMZ - C] Yeah

[JD] So all of these questions are gone. The value proposition is irresistible and these questions are out of the equation as well.

[TMZ - C] I'm all in.

[TMZ - H] So, okay, what about the controversy now? So, if a guy, um, asks a woman to marry him and presents a lab-grown diamond, does he have to disclose that this is a lab-grown diamond? Or can he be silent about it, hand the diamond over, and that's that?

[JD] Well, I think that's the really exciting part about all of this. First of all, most couples shop together. So the man that's going to do this, this mission and buy a lab-grown diamond pretending it's a natural diamond - that really doesn't make sense anymore because generally speaking, this generation wants a lab-grown diamond.

[JD] They're not trying to pretend that it's a natural diamond, they just think it's actually cooler or better, cheaper to have a lab-grown diamond.

[TMZ - C] Okay, hold on. What about the old heads?

[TMZ - H] Yeah, let's get to second and third marriages then.

[TMZ - C] Right, exactly.

[JD] Same thing. I got crushed and killed the first time, the second time, and now I finally get to buy something that makes sense financially. Everybody is interested.