Chocolate. Just typing the word makes me crave the dopamine-boosting sweet treat (ideally something more decadent than what lines the shelves of my local Duane Reade). But for some celebrities and fashion aficionados alike, “chocolate” is synonymous with luxury jewels, namely, brown diamonds from the New York-headquartered fine jewelry brand, Le Vian. Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna, and Chrissy Teigen—among many others—are no strangers to wearing not one but several designs incorporating the unique colored stone at once. Just like a bite of chocolate, it’s hard to have just one.
The company’s CEO, Eddie LeVian, trademarked the term “Chocolate Diamonds” in 2000 with the mission of popularizing the formerly underappreciated stone. The team developed a strict list of criteria for diamond buyers so that customers could rely on them for the best brown diamonds in the world. “The reason that we trademarked [Chocolate Diamonds] wasn’t just to make sure nobody else says ‘Chocolate,'” LeVian tells GRAZIA USA over the phone. “It was also to make sure that when we call something a Chocolate Diamond, it’s not mixed up with lower-grade, lower-quality stones that might have a brownish tone to them; that aren’t responsibly-sourced or natural.”
To earn the highly coveted title of Chocolate Diamond, a brown gem needs to meet all of Le Vian’s meticulous standards, based on the stone’s color, clarity, size, and cut. In simple terms, brown diamonds are extremely rare. But in not-so-simple terms, two pieces of criteria go as follows: The *perfect* brown diamond, according to Le Vian standards, falls between C4 and C7 on Argyle Diamond Mine’s color-grading scale (deep champagne hues) with a clarity of Slightly Included (SI) or higher (meaning, imperfections aren’t visible to the human eye). Taking all of these factors into consideration, only four percent of brown diamonds meet the requirements to become a piece of Le Vian fine jewelry.
Le Vian’s brown diamonds weren’t given the name “Chocolate Diamonds” for the obvious reason you may think. “A lot of people assume that chocolate is because of the color of chocolate,” LeVian continues. “But what we loved about chocolate was the addictiveness. A person who loves chocolate salivates when they see chocolate, especially if it’s high-end, good artisanal stuff. ‘Chocolate’ is a double entendre that not only speaks to the color of the diamonds but the passion and addiction that this collection of jewelry brings.”
Among those celebrities, jewelry collectors, and regular people alike who practically drool over the thought of Chocolate Diamonds is J. Lo. The hitmaker’s become an unofficial ambassador of the brand over the years. After all, she’s been wearing Chocolate Diamonds since, as LeVian puts it, “the very beginning,” in the early aughts. Her love for the brand is likely one of the reasons why, according to INSIDER, Google searches for “Chocolate Diamond” went from “virtually zero in 2007 to 400,000 in 2014” (sounds like a case similar to the hitmaker’s famed Versace gown, right?).
As I write this article in April of 2021, Le Vian’s biggest supplier of Chocolate Diamonds—Australia’s Argyle Mine—has been closed for nearly six months. The reason? After investing billions of dollars to dig miles under the earth’s surface, Le Vian says: “If they wanted to go further, it would have cost more than the diamonds they were selling. They just felt it wasn’t profitable.”
Consequently, the company expects Chocolate Diamond prices to rise dramatically. “Something like 80 percent of the supply was coming from Argyle,” the CEO continues. “There are other mines that produce brown diamonds, but the Argyle Mine was a unique signature stone that had pure browns as opposed to other mines that may have orangey-browns or pinkish-browns, or greenish-browns.” Without the Argyle Mine, brown diamonds are rarer than ever before. “There will still be a supply, but it will not be as much as before,” Le Vian concludes.” The smaller stones will still be in the market for a few years,” says Le Vian, adding that the larger stones will “become more difficult to find sooner.”
Ahead, shop five of GRAZIA’s favorite pieces from Le Vian, featuring the beloved trademarked stone.
All products featured on GRAZIA are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, Grazia may earn an affiliate commission.
