Want to wear fine jewelry without feeling any guilt? The newest Pandora collection will help you do just that. The largest jewelry brand just announced its new collection featuring lab-grown diamonds and 100% recycled precious metals.
Starting off in the United States and Canada, Pandora paves the way for a more sustainable, albeit still glamorous road to the future of luxury jewelry. This move proves that ethical and sustainable luxury doesn’t always have to be out of reach.
According to Pandora CEO Alexander Lacik, they made the decision to expand the industry choices and, hopefully, tap into a market that appears to be ready for more innovative fine jewelry. At the same time, they hope that this can make a positive impact on the planet, by reducing carbon footprint on a massive scale.
Pandora Brilliance: A Collection for a Brighter Future
This newest sustainable collection is aptly named Pandora Brilliance. With 33 pieces in the collection, the brand hopes to provide a lot of choices not only in style, but also in the kind of sustainable wear that jewelry enthusiasts might enjoy. Pandora Brilliance uses 100% recycled gold and silver—two of the precious metals that the Danish jewelry brand is known for.
Customers can choose from rings, bangles, earrings, and necklaces. Each diamond embedded on each jewelry piece features VS+ clarity, set in either sterling silver or 14K white or yellow gold.
Jewelry enthusiasts can start adding this sustainable line to their collection as early August 25. All of Pandora’s branches across the US and Canada are set to carry this line. Expect to have pieces start from $300, and you can choose from a wide range of carats, starting at 0.15 carats.
The minimalist approach seems perfectly apt. After all, brilliance does not always have to dazzle either. Sometimes, it’s in the quiet strength of integrity, something that the new Pandora collection seems to bring to the table.
Lab-grown Diamonds: Are Pandora Diamonds Real?
Is Pandora diamonds or crystals? This first collection may be a novel one even for jewelry fans. Some may not help but wonder if the amount they will pay for should be similar to what they would shell out for a “real” mined diamond.
However, jewelry experts are adamant about the authenticity of lab-grown diamonds. Even though the process may make these diamond seem synthetic in some way, the authenticity of a diamond does not depend on how it’s made. Rather, it depends on the chemical structure of the gemstone.
In the same way that air diamonds—precious stones that have been made via carbon sequestration, or out of thin air filled with carbon—are real, lab-grown diamonds have the same exact makeup that one would find in mined diamonds. The big difference lies in the impact of the overall process.
Mined diamonds may be controversial, given the mining process that may feature conflict concerns or questionable working conditions. On the other hand, innovative ways to produce diamonds go an extra mile. Some labs go for carbon neutral, so they don’t add more harmful footprint into the environment. Other sustainable diamond labs even go for carbon-negative, where they sequester harmful existing carbon and harvest them to make diamonds.
A New Shift After The Pandemic
Pandora’s decision to go a more sustainable and eco-friendly route wasn’t a sudden move. As early as 2020, Pandora has been planning to explore a more ethical way to deliver fine jewelry as one of the largest retailers of jewelry.
Originally, Pandora planned to go all-recycled by 2025 even before the pandemic hit. This involves using recycled gold and silver for its jewelry line. But even then, the company has already dabbled in making changes for its jewelry, going so far as to have over 70% of its current precious metals coming from recycled sources.
Apart from these two popular metals, Pandora also sources palladium and copper, as well as other man-made gemstones. However, there are fewer choices in this category. The full shift to recycled jewelry would be the icing on its main aim of becoming carbon neutral in all of its operations.
Given the size of its operations, Pandora’s head of sustainability Mads Twomey-Madsen said in an interview with Greenbiz that this plan for more eco-friendly operations may unfold in various steps.
Are Pandora Diamonds or Crystals?
With its new shift in materials, some may wonder how this affects Pandora’s brand as a whole. Many people have often wondered if the older jewelry that Pandora sold had authentic or synthetic materials.
As it caters to a massive audience at fairly affordable prices, Pandora’s other older collections used both authentic and synthetic gemstones. Its synthetic line subscribed to the flame fusion method, which results in synthetic corundum. This material features the same chemical structure as rubies and sapphires, but at a lower price point.
What is the Rarest Pandora Charm?
If you’ve just started collecting Pandora jewelry, you may have been drawn to the different charms in its bangle collection. And as some collectors go, they would typically wonder what the rarest and one-of-a-kind charm could be.
As the Pandora Brilliance collection unfolds, it would be nice to see charms added in. For now, the rarest charms tend to be special event-exclusive ones. But best to keep an eye out for the new collection. Rare or not, one piece would definitely be a great addition to any noteworthy jewelry collection.