Under Pressure: The Collapse of Diamonds as a Controlled System

For more than a century, the natural-diamond industry functioned as a tightly controlled economic system—managing supply and pricing while building the cultural mythology that made diamonds synonymous with rarity, luxury, and permanence. Lab-grown diamonds introduced a shock to that system: stones that are physically, chemically, and optically diamonds, cost considerably less than their mined counterparts, and cannot be distinguished from them with the naked eye. This talk examines diamonds as an extraordinary exercise in belief and marketing, lab-grown stones as a technological disruption, and what happens when materially identical objects carry radically different histories, meanings, and prices. If both stones are real, what exactly are we valuing—and what are we actually buying?

Aja Raden is an author, cultural historian, and diamond industry expert. She is the bestselling author of Stoned, consulting producer of the documentary Nothing Lasts Forever, and an on-camera commentator on luxury, value, and mythmaking. Her work examines how objects reveal power, belief, and economic control.