The diamond will never quite lose its shine

Everyone knows the protocol when an engagement is announced. The happy couple is congratulated, then the groom-to-be has his hand shaken and the bride-to-be has hers delicately held up so everyone can admire the twinkling new diamond on her finger and make a swift and furtive guess at how much it cost. The modern engagement ring marries materialism and romance in one hard, beautiful stone. But can it last? De Beers, the world's biggest miner of diamonds, is cutting production because stocks are
running low – which is, arguably, no bad thing.

The precious stone's reputation has already lost some of its lustre: in 2006, the film Blood Diamond dramatised the horrific reality of mining in African war zones. Cooing couples in Western jewellery shops have – in a minority of cases – inadvertently funded machete-wielding rebels in Africa. Now there is a growing emphasis on "ethical" diamonds, extracted without fuelling conflict or using child labour, although the non-ethical variety still accounts for an estimated one per cent of the global £6.5 billion-a-year trade.

But even without the taint of dubious mining practices, there are reasons to hope we will fall out of love with these wallet-busting gems. Diamonds are only forever because De Beers told us they were in an advertising campaign 63 years ago and, like suckers, we believed them. Now every man waiting to propose must tot up whether he can afford to spend a month's salary (or two to three months if you follow the advice of – guess who? – De Beers), and every woman must submit herself to the indignity of her friends and family calculating her beloved's income.

A ring isn't just a ring any more; it's referred to as a "rock", whose size flashes your worth to the world. And no trend is so annoying that celebrities can't make it worse: witness Simon Cowell giving his fiancée, Mezhgan Hussainy, a boulder which cost more than the average British house price.

Yes, diamond engagement rings are flashy, clichéd and consumerist, which is why I said I would never wear one – right until the moment I actually got engaged. Then I forgot my scruples and succumbed to the pull of convention, and a lovely vintage ring which catches the light as I type.

And that's the problem: although there is a rational case for cheering the demise of diamonds, there is also something irreducibly special about them. "Tetrahedrally bonded carbon atoms are forever" may not be as catchy as the original slogan, but it is a diamond's unique physical properties which help to explain its charm. A well-cut diamond reflects and refracts light waves like no other substance; its hardness means it is unlikely to chip, even if you forget to take it off when you're doing the dishes.

Twentieth century marketing men weren't the first to discover this appeal. Diamonds were treasured in ancient India, where they washed up on riverbeds; in 19th-century Britain, jewellers cut them specifically to catch the glow of candlelight. Thomas Hardy used them to symbolise sophistication: in Tess of the d'Urbervilles, the humble heroine is transformed when her new husband drapes a diamond necklace around her neck. She met an unpleasant end – and perhaps the diamond will, too. Not only are stocks running low, but the iconoclasts of modern art are on the offensive: Damien Hirst satirised bling culture with his diamond-studded skull, while a student at Goldsmiths College, who was featured in a recent BBC Four documentary, made an exhibition out of fake Swarovski diamonds which she had first swallowed, then excreted. Go for wide range of engagement rings at RoyalDesignOnline.com


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