The Final Cut: Meet Kerri Lavine, the Godmother of Diamonds

Kerri Lavine has been working in the diamond industry for 46 years. Today, she co-owns Diamanti NYC in the New York Diamond District, which launched in April 2021 and specializes in fine jewelry and natural diamonds. She is also a social media influencer known as the “Godmother of Diamonds,” with over 527,000 Instagram followers as of this writing. 

“I love bridal,” Lavine says. “That’s what I’ve always specialized in. I’m responsible for thousands of babies out there. That’s what makes me happy about this.” 

When people come to Lavine for engagement rings, they’ve already decided to buy, she explains; it’s just about coming up with the right item. 

“People are coming to me because they know they can trust me,” Lavine says. “They know that I’ll steer them in the right way. I’m very heavily promoting natural diamonds. I hate lab diamonds.” 

Right now, three-stone engagement rings are very popular in radiant, emerald, trapezoid and classic baguette cuts, she says, and eternity bands are in demand as well. 

“Bridal jewelry will always be a classic and timeless staple in our industry,” she asserts. “It’s the only thing that will never go out of [style with] time. People will be getting engaged all year long.” 

Lavine posts a lot of the pieces she creates to social media. Whenever she shows an item or releases a reel about it, she says, people always call to find out what it is. As for how she decides on her content, “it’s what my videographer and I come up with, what we think will be the right hit at the right time. How we splice it up and put it together and how we make everybody drawn to it.” 

Lavine has even done a few deals over FaceTime, showing the clients the product and the certificate and then letting them decide if they want to buy. 

“I made some million-dollar sales on FaceTime,” she relates. “Thank God for FaceTime and social media, because that [means] I could sell to somebody in Hawaii, I could sell to somebody in Dallas. I could sell to somebody anywhere [through] FaceTime…it’s been wild. I’ve been making some insane sales like that.”   

Main image: Kerri Lavine at Diamanti NYC. (Gael Gonzalez)