Why fancy-color diamonds are becoming the new push present luxury
Fancy-color diamonds are moving into push-present territory, with pinks, marquise shapes and rare purple stones offering a more personal kind of luxury.
A 2016 mentor told Reema Chopra to stop chasing basic colorless stones and focus instead on “the diamonds you can’t find on a list.” She built Khepri Jewels around that idea. For buyers who want a gift that signals a birth, not a status contest, that is the right lane.
Why retailers are leaning in now
Chopra founded Khepri Jewels in 2023 after a career that started in banking at CIBC from 2009 to 2013, then moved through diamond wholesaling, GIA training, and eventually New York City. Born in Canada and raised between India and Europe, she also grew up around gems through her mother, a jewelry connoisseur and collector, which helps explain why her taste runs toward larger natural stones with stronger presence. Khepri focuses on hand-selected fancy-color diamonds and emeralds, and Chopra does not want to compete in the white-diamond space, where natural stones now face much heavier pressure from lab-grown alternatives.
The Natural Diamond Council put the retail price of a 1.5-carat lab-grown diamond at $10,750 in 2015 and $1,770 in the third quarter of 2024, a drop of more than 83% in some cases. For retailers trying to sell natural colorless diamonds to middle-market shoppers, that compression makes the story harder to tell. At Luxury in Las Vegas, Chopra saw stronger interest in fancy-color stones precisely because they offer rarity, personality, and a cleaner value proposition than a standard white diamond.
What makes the category feel romantic
Pink diamonds remain the easiest entry point for a push present because they read as warm, flattering, and unmistakably giftable. The Natural Diamond Council’s July 2, 2025 fancy-color report called fancy-color diamonds a symbol of wealth and artistry after a year that included the discovery of an extremely rare purple diamond at Canada’s Diavik mine. That report also came in the same month as the nearly $14 million Christie's sale of the Marie-Thérèse Pink diamond and a fancy pink diamond ring at Sotheby's estimated at $1.5 million to $2 million.
For a push present, the most romantic versions are usually the ones that keep the color visible without overworking the design. A soft pink stone in a restrained setting feels personal because the color does the talking. The same is true of long fancy shapes such as marquise. Marquise rose 12% in jewelry demand, while center stones between 2.00 and 2.24 carats were up 9%, according to the Natural Diamond Council.
What reads collectible instead of sentimental
Purple diamonds, and especially any stone with unusually strong saturation, move closer to collector territory. The Diavik discovery gave that corner of the market a fresh burst of attention, and the auction results in June 2025 confirmed that high-end buyers still respond to rarity when the story is strong enough.
That does not make collectible pieces a bad push present choice. It just changes the message. A stone that is rare because of its color, shape, or size works best when the giver wants the piece to mark the birth as a once-only moment, not just an elegant accessory. Khepri focuses on larger gemstones.
How to tell whether the gift is meaningful or just trend-driven
The simplest test is whether the stone would still matter if it were set aside for a decade. Natural diamonds continue to carry weight as gifts and heirlooms, and the Natural Diamond Council’s February 2026 market report found that consumers still value them that way even as tariffs, inflation, and higher gold prices complicate the broader jewelry picture. In that same report, holiday jewelry sales by specialty jewelers were up more than 6% in 2025 and U.S. natural diamond jewelry sales by specialty jewelers rose 2.1%.
A useful way to judge the purchase:
- Choose a color with personal resonance. Pink feels classic and emotional, while purple feels rarer and more collector-minded.
- Favor a shape that suits the person who will wear it. Marquise has been gaining traction, and long fancy shapes tend to look distinctive without feeling overwrought.
- Let natural rarity do the work. When the white-diamond market is being squeezed by lab-grown pricing, a natural fancy-color stone has a clearer story to tell.
- Think about scale. Chopra prefers larger stones, and the broader market is following suit with higher demand for stones around 2 carats and up.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
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