The Next Frontier of Engagement Rings Is Experience

I think people buying engagement rings today should expect more than a ring.

Not necessarily a larger diamond. Not more gold. Not a more elaborate setting for the sake of making it elaborate.

More from the experience of creating it.

You should be able to participate.

You should be able to sit with the person designing the ring and tell them who it is for. You should be able to watch an idea take shape, understand why decisions are being made and see the design before it exists. You should be able to have something created around a person rather than selecting the closest version of her taste from a showcase.

At our atelier, today's tools make that involvement easier to build into the process.

A number of changes in jewellery are happening at the same time, and together I think they're going to change what people expect from an engagement ring.

One of the biggest is the accessibility of diamonds.

Custom can now mean something much more interesting

The tools available to jewellery designers today are remarkable.

I can begin with a conversation and a pencil sketch, move into CAD and develop the ring in three dimensions. I can print a physical model, make changes before metal is cast and help a customer understand what we're creating well before the finished ring is put in their hand.

None of those tools replaces the designer.

They're useful because they let us take an idea further.

At the same time, lab-grown diamonds can put a larger, well-cut diamond within reach at a lower price than a comparable natural stone.

We've spent four articles in our Rock Bottom series looking closely at that change, particularly the speed of price declines and what buyers should understand before purchasing one.

That part matters.

But there is another consequence of accessible diamonds that I think is exciting for our industry.

When the centre diamond no longer has to consume most of the budget or provide most of the excitement, we get to think harder about everything around it.

The design.

The craftsmanship.

The meaning behind it.

How the customer participates.

How the ring is presented.

Even what happens before and after the jewellery is made.

That's a much larger canvas.

Custom doesn't have to mean choosing a centre stone, changing the metal colour and adjusting an existing setting.

It can mean: let's make something that has never existed before.

Look for more than a ring

I think customers should start asking different questions of jewellers.

Of course you should ask about the diamond. You should understand what you're buying, what it costs and why.

But I would also ask what you actually get to experience.

Do you meet the person designing the ring?

Do they want to know anything about the person you're proposing to?

Can you bring ideas, memories or references that have nothing to do with jewellery?

Do you see the first sketch?

Can you follow the design as it develops?

Can you see the ring in three dimensions before it's made?

Are you actually involved in selecting the diamond?

Can a detail be made specifically for your partner rather than because it already exists in a supplier's catalogue?

Does anybody talk to you about how you're going to give it to her?

Do you leave with stories from the process itself?

Some of those questions may still be unexpected in a conventional jewellery store.

I don't think they will sound strange for much longer.

The experience becomes part of the ring

Consider a straightforward way to purchase an engagement ring.

You look at settings. You compare diamonds. You make a decision. The ring is sized. You pick it up.

That can work perfectly well.

A custom process gives us another way to do it.

A customer can come in and tell us about the person he loves.

We might talk about how they met, what she wears, where they've travelled, things she has saved on her phone, jewellery from her family, architecture she likes or something small about their relationship that he almost didn't think was worth mentioning.

Then we draw.

The first sketch isn't the finished answer. That's part of the fun.

An idea gets pushed around. Proportions change. A detail gets simplified. Something that looked good on paper doesn't survive the three-dimensional model. Something else suddenly becomes obvious once you can rotate the ring on a screen.

Then you choose the diamond.

Eventually the thing that started as a conversation becomes a piece of jewellery you can hold.

And then comes the part all of this was for.

You give it to someone.

All of those earlier moments can become part of the story attached to the object.

That's what experience can add to custom jewellery. The value isn't only in what was manufactured. Part of the value is that you were there while it became yours.

Accessible diamonds change the question

The centre diamond can carry a large part of an engagement ring's material value.

A larger natural diamond is generally rarer than a smaller one of comparable quality. It usually costs more. That rarity can be part of its appeal.

Lab-grown diamonds offer a different pricing context.

Choosing one can leave more of the budget available for design and craftsmanship.

I don't think the lesson is that engagement rings should simply become cheaper.

I think the more interesting question is:

What can we do now that we couldn't do before?

What happens if some of that budget goes into truly individual design?

What happens if more time goes into the customer experience?

What happens if the jeweller has to provide something valuable beyond access to the diamond?

Those are healthy questions for the industry.

“The Most Romantic Engagement Rings in the World” is our answer

At Lessard Coutu, we've been thinking about what our particular version of an experience-based engagement ring should be.

We landed on romance.

More specifically, we asked ourselves what we would have to do if we intended to make The Most Romantic Engagement Rings in the World.

That sounds like marketing until you try to define it.

To us, romance means love, excitement and deep connection between people. In fiction, a romance is also a love story that moves towards a hopeful ending.

Once we started there, it became a useful design brief.

We need to know more about the couple.

The process should create some excitement of its own.

The design needs room for personal meaning.

The proposal matters.

And ideally the finished ring should remind someone of more than the day they bought it.

That's the experience we're trying to build.

It doesn't need to be everybody else's answer.

In fact, I hope it isn't.

I hope jewellers keep inventing

I understand why many jewellers are uneasy about lab-grown diamonds. Falling prices can make inventory and purchasing decisions difficult. We cover that plainly in the Rock Bottom series because customers deserve to understand the economics of what they're buying.

But I don't want that concern to turn into a belief that the innovation itself was bad.

Look at what it has made possible.

Lab-grown diamonds give buyers another option at a lower price point.

We can develop designs in three dimensions.

We can print a model before casting.

We can show a customer how a design looks from several angles.

We can test and refine complex details before committing to metal.

Those changes give jewellers room to invent.

One jeweller might build an incredible hospitality experience. Another might specialize in designing with customers over several months. Someone else may bring travel into it, or family history, or technology, or private access to a craftsperson's bench.

There will be ideas that don't work.

There will also be engagement-ring experiences that none of us has imagined yet.

I want to see those.

The industry should keep going.

Expect more

Choosing a less expensive diamond doesn't have to diminish the personal meaning of an engagement ring.

It can make us clearer about where its different kinds of value come from.

The relationship itself is personal. The process of making the object that represents it can be personal too.

For us, that means trying to make the most romantic engagement rings in the world.

Someone else will come up with another answer.

Good.

The important thing is that we can ask more than how much diamond we can put in the middle of a ring.

We can ask what the whole experience of making one should feel like.

I think that's where some of the best jewellery of the next generation will come from.

Read the companion article: What Makes an Engagement Ring Romantic?.

To see how that approach could shape your own ring, explore the Lessard Coutu engagement ring experience.