Addressing a packed room, Rapaport Group Chairman Martin Rapaport delivered a wide-ranging and impassioned presentation on Sunday at the 2025 JCK Las Vegas show.
The session, titled “State of the Diamond Industry: The Way Forward,” was part of the annual Rapaport Breakfast and tackled key issues facing the industry, from sanctions and synthetics to global trade shifts and ethical sourcing.
This year’s event featured a candid conversation with Al Cook, CEO of De Beers Group, who joined Rapaport on stage to talk about the industry’s future.
Opening the presentation, Rapaport candidly assessed the current market environment. “Frankly, it sucks,” he said, pointing to steep declines in rough- and polished-diamond exports and reduced global demand.
Yet amid these challenges, he maintained a positive outlook: “I’m very optimistic about diamonds. I’m very optimistic about the industry. Even now, if things look a little bit tough…we’re moving. We’re going forward.”
A central and recurring theme of the presentation was the need for transparency and ethical sourcing. Reiterating his message from previous years with renewed urgency, Rapaport once again fell to his knees to beg the industry, “Please don’t buy diamonds if you don’t know where they come from.”
He went on to highlight two key issues surrounding synthetic diamonds: their failure to hold value long-term, and marketers’ tendency to equate them with natural diamonds.
The rapid price decline in synthetics requires retailers to be honest and transparent with their customers about value retention, he stressed, adding that contrary to popular belief, natural diamonds are a fundamentally different product due to their scarcity.
“The naturalness gives you a uniqueness,” he said. “Naturals are completely different than synthetics.”
Rapaport emphasized that he was not opposed to synthetic diamonds, provided there was full and transparent disclosure.
Looking at macroeconomic and geopolitical factors, he explained how trade conflicts — especially between the US and China, and in relation to President Donald Trump’s tariff policies — are altering the industry landscape, with the US adopting a more transactional approach.
Despite current challenges, the US market is poised for a boom, fueled by a massive generational wealth transfer and new opportunities in the jewelry resale segment, he continued. “Billions of dollars of pre-owned diamonds, gems and jewelry in the US” will be “looking for a new home,” he said.
Citing the industry mantra about the critical “last 18 inches” at the sales counter, he underscored the importance of selling ethical, traceable, high-quality natural diamonds, and highlighted the potential for “Diamonds That Make the World a Better Place®.”
Both Cook and Rapaport stressed the need to create demand through storytelling and emotional value.
“The really important thing is recreating desire for natural diamonds,” said Cook, noting that De Beers was running its highest level of category marketing in more than a decade. He urged the industry to communicate natural diamonds’ rarity and ethical provenance clearly to consumers.
Rapaport echoed that sentiment. Greater transparency and retail training are critical for helping jewelers connect emotionally with their customers and capture value at the sales counter, he said.
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