This article first appeared in the Lab-Grown Diamond Special 2023.

New York-based Smiling Rocks is once again blazing trails in lab-grown diamond (LGD) circles by effectively repositioning LGDs as an emerging luxury jewellery option. The company is hoping to achieve this through product innovation and market expansion as well as green initiatives, revealed Smiling Rocks CEO Zulu Ghevriya.

Furthermore, Smiling Rocks is establishing itself as a high-end LGD jewellery brand and a top-quality designer that offers progressive, inventive LGD jewellery collections as a way to further enhance LGDs’ standing in the trade.

“This has been our goal from day one and all our efforts are being directed towards this,” shared Ghevriya. “Smiling Rocks will continue to create aesthetic designs to attract new generations of buyers and introduce fresh trends in the market.”

In response to rising demand for LGDs, the company is also actively expanding its retail network and boosting its international footprint. Its major market is the US, but it has successfully built a solid customer base in Europe, Japan and South Korea. Ghevriya remarked, “The brand is expanding globally. We extended our retail network from over 500 to more than 650 by end-2022.”

Jewellery of the future

Smiling Rocks is launching more than 20 new collections in June this year, featuring signature styles and new designs. Since its inception in 2019, the company has made a name for itself as a premium supplier of LGD bridal jewellery, including a highly sought-after line of men’s engagement rings that it unveiled in 2022.

According to Ghevriya, the men’s engagement ring campaign, headlined by the Zulu Collection, was well-received in the trade and is now considered one of the brand’s most iconic collections.

“This collection is representative of the founders’ vision to promote design trends for men’s jewellery,” the company official said. “This is one of the most exciting product lines that we introduced last year. Almost all our retailers ended up buying it.”

Banking on steady demand, Smiling Rocks said it will reinvent, update and expand the Zulu Collection every year to meet consumers’ evolving needs. The jeweller is launching new men’s engagement rings in 2023 to refresh the collection.

With leading brands now offering their own LGD jewellery lines, consumer awareness and interest are bound to strengthen over the coming years, noted Ghevriya.

“We have seen premium brands such as Pandora and Breitling, to name a few, enter the LGD business,” he continued. “The catalyst for this is an emerging desire among today’s consumers for sustainable and responsibly produced goods, which companies are prepared to satisfy. LGDs have a solid sustainability narrative that the market cannot ignore.”

Ghevriya said the LGD sector is poised to become increasingly mainstream as more and more major brands and jewellery manufacturers jump on the LGD bandwagon. This ongoing development is expected to impact consumer confidence in LGDs in a positive way and further bolster demand for LGD jewellery.

Sustainable choice

Transparency and accountability have always been at the core of Smiling Rocks’ operations. The company was founded by Ghevriya and his brother Manish Jiwani as a contemporary LGD jewellery brand, with sustainability and philanthropy as pillars.

From the outset, Smiling Rocks has advocated for clear and transparent supply chains and ethical business operations, inspired by shifting societal conventions. According to Ghevriya, younger generations are becoming ever more partial to sustainable practices when choosing products and making buying decisions.

“We mainly cater to this buyer demographic whose values align with their purchasing behaviours,” he explained. “They have a higher level of empathy for the people and the planet, which influences the products and services that they are willing to invest in.”

In response, companies must now be accountable for their actions and vigilant in how their products are sourced and manufactured. Smiling Rocks is also leading initiatives on this front. Ghevriya said the company has obtained the coveted Butterfly Mark certification, an independent, globally respected mark of trust awarded by Positive Luxury to luxury brands, retailers and suppliers that meet the highest standards of verified ESG+ (Environmental, Social, Governance and Innovation) performance.

Smiling Rocks is also certified by business sustainability ratings provider Ecovadis on its ESG+ framework. Most recently, Smiling Rocks has been certified as an SCS Global Services Accredited Diamond Handler, which means the brand meets all requirements stipulated in SCS-007 Jewelry Sustainability Standard – Sustainably Rated Diamonds protocols.

“We remain steadfast in our sustainability agenda as proven by our third-party certifications and audits. Our journey to becoming a sustainable and ethical brand continues,” noted Ghevriya.

Smiling Rocks participated in an ocean-cleaning movement in 2022, which it continues to support. So far, the initiative has helped remove more than 30,000 pounds of trash in the sea, in collaboration with US-based 4ocean.

This year, the company is in the process of establishing a digital education framework aimed at helping schools that do not have the resources to teach digital literacy to children. Smiling Rocks has established three digital libraries in rural areas in India. The goal is to be able to set up 100 digital libraries in the future. Ghevriya said, “We want children in rural schools and villages to receive the education and training that they need to face an increasingly digital world and ensure a promising future for them and their families.”