Shahla Karimi Jewelry’s Diamond Divas earns Webby nod after bold social-series gamble

Shahla Karimi Jewelry turned its New York showroom into the set of a comedy about modern love, and the gamble pushed Diamond Divas onto the Webby Awards stage. The 40 one-minute episodes, posted across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Substack, earned a nomination for Best Social: Fashion & Beauty and a Webby honoree spot in Video & Film: Unscripted, a crowded field that drew nearly 13,000 entries and included names such as Rare Beauty, Who What Wear, PopSugar and Tory Burch.

What makes the series stand out is its refusal to treat fine jewelry like a static product shot. Diamond Divas uses actors and improv comics as customers, while the real showroom staff play themselves, giving the brand’s world a lived-in rhythm that feels closer to a scene than an ad. The first two episodes, Mike’s Big Year and Practice Makes Perfect, set the tone: less polished gloss, more personality, with comedy carrying the emotional weight that jewelry campaigns usually assign to sentimentality.

Karimi has said she invested an entire year’s marketing budget into the series, a bold move for a small brand that chose entertainment over conventional brand content. That wager now looks strategic as much as creative. In a category where many jewelers still lean on atelier imagery, bridal clichés or close-up craftsmanship reels, Diamond Divas gives Shahla Karimi Jewelry a recognizable hook that travels faster on social platforms because it feels human before it feels luxurious.

The brand’s roots help explain why the series works. Shahla Karimi Jewelry launched in 2014 on 47th Street in Manhattan’s Diamond District before moving its showroom and office to 594 Broadway in SoHo in June 2022. The company says its pieces are handmade in New York City with recycled gold and conflict-free stones, and that its design language is rooted in storytelling, memory, architecture and ethical sourcing. The showroom comedy extends that same logic: if the jewelry carries emotional symbolism, the marketing has to do the same.

Karimi’s own background also reads like an education in how culture sells. Before building her namesake brand, she worked in product strategy and merchandising for major brands and campaigns, produced apparel collections for Vogue and the CFDA, worked with more than 50 designers, and served as Director of Merchandising for President Obama’s re-election campaign. Diamond Divas distills that experience into a format that is modern, funny and unmistakably brand-specific, proving that the fastest way to make meaningful jewelry feel current may be to let the showroom speak for itself.