Stephanie Gottlieb launches lab-grown lines for everyday self-expression
Stephanie Gottlieb turned lab-grown diamonds into everyday self-styling, with 20 Casual Carats rings starting at $675.
Stephanie Gottlieb launched two lab-grown lines, Lola and Casual Carats, to push diamond jewelry toward daily styling rather than milestone-only buying. In a July 13 Q&A, the New York City designer drew the line plainly: “Natural diamonds are forever” and “lab-grown diamonds are for right now.”
Casual Carats is the more playful of the two, and the one that makes the shift feel especially visible. Offered through Stephanie Gottlieb as a separate brand, it includes 20 ring styles in round, pear, emerald and heart cuts, all set in 14k yellow gold on colorful silicone bands. Prices run from $675 for round styles to $1,850 for emerald cuts, with pear versions at $975 and heart rings at $895, a range that places the collection squarely in the realm of stackable, lower-stakes self-purchase rather than bridal centerpiece. Stephanie Gottlieb’s site now places Casual Carats and Lola alongside bridal, bespoke and personalization categories, underlining that lab-grown stones have become another merchandising lane, not a replacement for the house’s core business.
Lola, meanwhile, sits under SG Fine and feels more finely tuned to Gottlieb’s fashion jewelry vocabulary. The line uses drilled lab-grown diamonds set in 14k yellow or white gold, a cleaner, more fluid construction than the prong-set look associated with classic engagement jewelry. JCK described the eight-piece collection as four necklaces, three earrings and a ring, with prices from $1,065 to $7,750, and the brand’s product page highlights Lola drilled diamond linear earrings with 1.6 to 1.8 carats total weight. If Casual Carats reads like a stackable weekend piece, Lola is the sharper, sleeker sibling: still fun, but with enough polish to sit closer to fine jewelry.
The timing fits a market already recalibrated by lab-grown demand. BriteCo found lab-grown diamonds accounted for more than 45% of U.S. engagement ring purchases by 2024, while Tenoris data cited by National Jeweler put them at 14% of the U.S. jewelry market that same year. De Beers said in June that synthetic lab-grown diamonds reached 15% of U.S. independent jeweler sales in 2025, yet natural diamonds remained the most desired jewelry product and non-bridal occasions made up three-quarters of U.S. demand. GIA, meanwhile, has said analysts projected lab-grown stones would reach 20% of all diamonds on the market by 2025, and that it now receives more CVD-grown diamond submissions in a day than it once saw in a full year. Gottlieb is betting that the category’s newest power is not just scale, but mood: self-expression, bought without a milestone attached.
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.
Did this article answer your question?
