The direct-to-consumer jewelry brand Catbird first started dabbling in lab-grown diamonds in 2017. Since then, its lab-grown diamond offerings have been restricted to its engagement and bridal pieces.
But now, in the midst of larger expansion and growth, Catbird is bringing lab-grown diamonds out of the bridal section and into the rest of its inventory. A new collection called the Cinema Lab Grown Diamond Collection, launched in early October, is the brand’s first non-bridal collection featuring lab-grown diamonds and the beginning of a larger rollout of more lab-grown diamonds in the future.
Catbird’s chief creative officer, Leigh Batnick Plessner, told Glossy that expanding into lab-grown diamonds was something both the brand and its most loyal customers had been wanting for a while.
“There’s still a lot more we can do with lab-grown,” Plessner said. “We know our customer is already comfortable buying lab-grown, and they’re already connecting with it. One of the first orders for this new collection came from one of our most loyal clients who buys everything we make. It’s exciting to see how the customer is reacting to it.”
Lab-grown diamonds already account for about 30% of Catbird’s engagement ring sales. Their lower cost of production means that they can be larger than mined diamonds at a more affordable rate. For Plessner, that meant Catbird could experiment with different styles and larger sizes in the Cinema collection while keeping the brand’s prices. Most Cinema collection pieces featuring lab-grown diamonds are priced at around $600.
The adoption of lab-grown across the industry hasn’t slowed down. Over 70% of millennial customers now say they prefer lab-grown over mined diamonds, and more than half of millennials and Gen Z have lab-grown engagement rings, according to The Knot. Celebrities like Billie Eilish have increasingly embraced lab-grown diamonds in both their personal lives and in paid partnerships. Catbird’s embrace of lab-grown diamonds and its partnerships with popular Gen-Z properties like the Amazon Prime show “The Summer I Turned Pretty” are among its strategies for reaching valuable Gen-Z jewelry shoppers.
For budget-conscious shoppers, lab-grown diamonds offer an attractive alternative to mined stones, particularly as carat size increases, said Elizabeth Milian, a brand protection attorney and licensed gemologist. “Lab-grown stones offer high-color and high-clarity grade stones at a fraction of the cost of comparable mined stones. They also resonate with consumers who prioritize sustainability and the assurance of a conflict-free purchase.”
Catbird’s expansion into more lab-grown styles comes as the brand is expanding on multiple fronts. For the majority of its 20 years of existence, the brand had only two stores in its native Brooklyn. But in the last year, it has brought that number up to 11, opening stores in cities including Chicago and Los Angeles. It will open a 12th store in Atlanta this month. Offline sales now make up around 40% of its total revenue.
Much of Catbird’s expansion has come after Mo Sakurai joined the company as CEO in 2022. An investment round for an undisclosed amount led by Victor Capital Partners last year is supporting the brand’s expansions to both physical retail and lab-grown diamonds.
It’s notable that Catbird has remained entirely direct-to-consumer at a time when many other DTC-native brands are embracing wholesale. And while tariffs are still wreaking havoc on many brands’ playbooks, Catbird produces over half of its inventory in New York City.
“The stores serve as a customer acquisition tool, but because we’ve been around for a while, we also know where our customers are,” Plessner said. “There’s a natural groundswell of demand that we are now building on.”
Catbird has also started securing bigger product collaboration partners, including popular musicians like Laufey and Clairo and the aforementioned collaboration with “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” The latter came about from a connection between Plessner and fashion designer Carol Lim, a close friend of the show’s creator, Jenny Han, who helped design the Catbird x The Summer I Turned Pretty collection. Pieces from the collection were also featured in the show’s third season, which aired in July.
“With Clairo and Laufey, there’s so much overlap with our brand aesthetic — they were just natural fits,” Plessner said. “’The Summer I Turned Pretty’ was the first time we participated in something so large in the cultural zeitgeist.”
