Contents 8 sections · 12 min read
Every diamond in Dorvelle is a lab-grown diamond. The house on 47th Street has sold diamonds on 47th Street since 1959, mined and lab-grown, and the store has no reason to oversell either one. This is what the counter tells people who ask, written down.
What a lab-grown diamond is.
A lab-grown diamond is carbon arranged in the same cubic crystal as a mined diamond. It has the same hardness, 10 on the Mohs scale. It bends and returns light the same way, so it has the same brilliance and fire. It conducts heat the same way, which is why a standard handheld diamond tester reads it as diamond. A trained gemologist cannot separate the two with a loupe; it takes laboratory instruments that read growth patterns and trace elements.
What differs is where and how fast the crystal formed. A mined diamond formed one to three billion years ago, deep in the earth. A lab-grown diamond grows in a few weeks in a machine. That difference is why the law requires a qualifier: in the United States, the FTC's Jewelry Guides say a lab-grown stone must be described as "lab-grown," "laboratory-created" or a phrase like them, every time. You will see that word on every page of this site.
Cubic zirconia and moissanite are different materials. Cubic zirconia is softer and heavier. Moissanite is silicon carbide, with a different sparkle and hardness. A lab-grown diamond is a diamond made in a laboratory.
How they are grown.
There are two methods, and both start with carbon and end with a rough crystal that is cut and polished exactly as a mined rough would be.
High Pressure, High Temperature (HPHT). This method recreates the conditions under which diamonds form in the earth. Carbon is pressed at roughly 850,000 pounds per square inch and heated to around 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit, with a metal solvent that helps the carbon crystallize. Growth takes days to weeks.
Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD). A thin slice of diamond, the seed, sits in a vacuum chamber filled with a carbon-rich gas, usually methane. The gas is energized into a plasma, and carbon atoms settle onto the seed, building the crystal layer by layer. CVD has become the dominant method because it scales well and gives growers fine control over the conditions.
Some CVD diamonds are treated after growth, often with heat and pressure, to improve their color. That is normal practice, and a grading report states it when it applies.
Then comes the part no machine does on its own: cutting. A lab-grown rough is planned, cleaved, sawn and polished by cutters, facet by facet. A poorly cut lab-grown diamond looks as dull as a poorly cut mined one. The cut is where the sparkle comes from.
How they are graded.
Lab-grown diamonds are graded on the same scales as mined diamonds, the 4Cs.
Color. The scale runs from D, colorless, down through the alphabet to Z, which shows a light yellow or brown. D, E and F are the colorless grades. The Dorvelle round solitaire is D. Most of the collection is E to F.
Clarity. The scale runs from Flawless through VVS (very, very slightly included) and VS (very slightly included) to SI and I. VVS stones have inclusions that a skilled grader struggles to find at ten times magnification. VS stones have minor inclusions that are not visible to the eye. The product table below lists the clarity grade for each design.
Cut. For round brilliants, an overall cut grade judges proportions, symmetry and polish. Fancy shapes, such as oval and emerald cut, are judged on their proportions and the way they hold light.
Carat. Weight, not size: one carat is 0.2 grams. A single-stone piece is listed in ct. A piece with many stones is listed in ct tw, carat total weight, the combined weight of every diamond in the piece or the pair.
Most lab-grown diamonds sold today are graded by IGI, the International Gemological Institute, which grades more lab-grown stones than any other laboratory. GIA, the Gemological Institute of America, also issues reports for lab-grown diamonds. A report for a lab-grown diamond identifies it as laboratory-grown, and the stone's girdle, the thin edge around its widest point, is usually laser-inscribed with the report number so the paper and the stone can be matched.
Here is the grading of every Dorvelle piece, straight from the catalog that drives this site.
Reports on center stones over one carat.
Lab report with center stones over one carat.
That is the promise, and it is deliberately narrow. A report makes sense for a center stone, where one diamond carries the look and most of the value of the piece. It does not make sense for the small stones around a hoop or along a tennis bracelet. Those are matched by hand in parcels, by color and clarity, and a report for a stone that weighs a few hundredths of a carat would cost more than the stone.
In Dorvelle, the pieces with a center stone over one carat are:
- Emerald Cut Studs, 2 ct, center stone 1.02 ct
- Cushion Studs, 2 ct, center stone 1.01 ct
- Oval Solitaire Pendant, 1.5 ct, center stone 1.53 ct
- Emerald Cut Solitaire Pendant, 2 ct, center stone 2 ct
- Round Hidden Halo Ring, 1.5 ct, center stone 1.5 ct
- Round Studs, 4 ct, center stone 1.76 ct
- Cushion Pendant, 2 ct, center stone 2.01 ct
- Oval Solitaire Pendant, 2 ct, center stone 2.03 ct
- Round Solitaire Pendant, 3 ct, center stone 3.03 ct
- Oval Hidden Halo, 2 ct, center stone 1.54 ct
- Cushion Hidden Halo Ring, 1.5 ct, center stone 1.59 ct
- Oval Solitaire, 1.5 ct, center stone 1.51 ct
- Radiant Solitaire, 2.5 ct, center stone 2.59 ct
- Round Solitaire, 2 ct, center stone 2.02 ct
- Marquise Solitaire, 1.5 ct, center stone 1.56 ct
- Emerald Cut Three Stone Ring, 2.5 ct, center stone 2.07 ct
- Round Three Stone Ring, 2 ct, center stone 1.01 ct
- Cushion Solitaire, 2 ct, center stone 2.01 ct
- Pear Solitaire, 2 ct, center stone 2.05 ct
- Round Solitaire, 3 ct, center stone 3 ct
- Emerald Cut Solitaire, 3 ct, center stone 3.06 ct
- Emerald Cut Hidden Halo Ring, 2.5 ct, center stone 2.11 ct
- Marquise Toi et Moi Ring, 2 ct, center stone 1.03 ct
- Oval Three Stone, 3 ct, center stone 2.11 ct
- Oval Hidden Halo Ring, 3 ct, center stone 2.52 ct
- Oval Lariat Necklace, 12 ct, center stone 1.78 ct
The same stone in the 14k version and the Dorvelle version.
Every Dorvelle piece is a 47th Street design that already exists in 14k gold. Both versions are cast from the same design file and set with lab-grown diamonds of the same shape, carat weight, color and clarity. The setter works to the same spec on the same bench on 47th Street. Put the two side by side and the stones read the same, because they are the same specification of stone.
What changes is the metal under the finish. For most of the house's history, the stone was the expensive part of a diamond piece and the gold was a smaller share of the price. Lab-grown diamonds turned that around. The stone now costs a fraction of what a mined stone of the same grade costs, and the gold has become a large share of the ticket. Dorvelle takes the gold out, casts the design in sterling silver, finishes it in rhodium or gold vermeil, and sells it at about a quarter of the 14k price. Whenever you want it looking new, the bench re-plates it by mail: the first time free, $45 after that.
You can see it for yourself. The twin test on the homepage puts the 14k list price of each design beside the Dorvelle price, with the piece turning on film.
Jewelry, not an investment.
Buy a lab-grown diamond to wear it.
That is the honest framing for everything on this site. Dorvelle is priced as jewelry: you are paying for the design, the stones, the setting and the bench that looks after it, and you get a piece you can wear every day. If you want a diamond chosen partly as a store of value, that is a different conversation, about mined diamonds, and the house on 47th Street is happy to have it with you.
Mined or lab-grown?
The house on 47th Street sells both. Here is how the counter thinks about the choice.
Lab-grown suits you if you want the most diamond, in size and in grade, for what you spend; the piece is something to wear rather than to hold for value; or the stone's origin in the earth does not matter to you.
Mined suits you if geological rarity matters to you, a stone formed over a billion years ago and found, not made; you are buying a piece to hand down and you want it to keep a resale market; or you may one day want to sell or trade the stone.
Neither answer is wrong. They answer different questions. If you are unsure, ask a specialist. The people who answer are the house's own, and they sell both.
Questions people ask.
Will a lab-grown diamond test as a diamond? Yes. Standard testers measure how a stone conducts heat, and a lab-grown diamond conducts heat as a diamond does. Telling lab-grown from mined takes laboratory equipment, which is why reports and laser inscriptions matter.
Will it go cloudy or lose its sparkle? No. It is diamond, the hardest material used in jewelry. What dulls a diamond is film: lotion, soap and skin oil on the back of the stone. A soft brush and warm water with a little mild soap brings it back. On a Dorvelle piece, keep that gentle, because the plated finish is the part that wears. The care guide has the details.
Can I tell a Dorvelle stone from the one in its 14k twin? Not by looking. They are graded to the same specification. The difference between the two pieces is the metal, and you can only see that by reading the stamp inside.