IT CAME FROM THE SKY

On diamonds, Moissanite and why comparison misses the point entirely.

I love diamonds.

I want to say that clearly before anything else. The real ones. The ones the earth made over millions of years under unimaginable pressure in the dark. There is something about that origin that moves me. The authenticity of it. The fact that it existed long before anyone thought to put it in a ring.

Forget value. Forget carats and certificates and resale prices. For me it's always been about the authenticity. A diamond is a piece of the earth that found its way to your finger. That means something.

And then there's Moissanite.

Which is something else entirely.

Where it comes from

Moissanite was first discovered in 1893 in a meteorite crater in Arizona. Henri Moissan thought he'd found diamonds. He hadn't. He'd found something rarer.

Silicon carbide. A mineral that almost doesn't exist on earth. The tiny quantities found in nature came from space. From meteorites that travelled unimaginable distances before landing here.

It cannot be mined in any meaningful quantity. What exists in nature is finite and largely microscopic. The Moissanite in jewellery today is laboratory created because there is simply no other way to have enough of it.

Some people hear laboratory created and think lesser. I understand that instinct. But I think it misses something important about what Moissanite actually is.

The honesty of it

Moissanite doesn't pretend to be a diamond. That's the first thing I want to say to anyone who dismisses it as a diamond alternative or a budget substitute.

It isn't trying to be a diamond. It has a completely different chemical structure, a different refractive index, a different way of interacting with light. Side by side with a diamond it looks different. Not worse. Different.

It's sharper. Brighter in certain lights. It has a fire to it, that rainbow dispersion when light hits it, that exceeds a diamond's. Some people find that too much. Others find it exactly right.

And it has a hardness second only to diamond on the Mohs scale. It will outlast almost everything else you own. It doesn't scratch. It doesn't cloud. It doesn't change.

Why I use it

I started working with Moissanite because of its properties. The hardness, the brilliance, the fact that it works beautifully in sterling silver settings without overwhelming them.

But I kept working with it because of its story.

A stone that came from space. That exists on earth only because something extraordinary happened millions of years ago and a piece of it landed here. That can't be dug out of the ground in any quantity so must be created in a laboratory that replicates the conditions of its formation.

There's an honesty in that I find compelling. It isn't pretending to be something it isn't. It knows exactly what it is. A star that fell to earth and became something you can wear.

The diamond question

People ask me whether they should choose a diamond or Moissanite and I always give the same answer.

Wrong question.

The right question is what do you want this stone to mean?

If you want the earth. The millions of years. The pressure and the dark and the authenticity of something the planet made. Get a diamond. A real one. It deserves to be chosen for exactly those reasons.

If you want the sky. The meteorite. The something that travelled further than we can imagine to be here. The stone that sparkles like a star and makes no apology for it. Get Moissanite.

They are not substitutes for each other. They are completely different things with completely different stories and both of those stories are worth telling.

A personal note

I romanticise Moissanite. I'll admit that freely.

When I set a Moissanite stone I think about where it came from. The sky. The infinity of it. The fact that silicon carbide exists in the stars and in the space between them and somehow a tiny piece of that found its way into a crater in Arizona and eventually into a studio in the Tararua District of New Zealand.

It makes me smile every time.

It doesn't pretend to be a diamond. It is its own being.

It is a star.

Sue Dunmore, Porini Design Studio, Tararua District, New Zealand.