This week, the jewelry brand Brilliant Earth is expanding its retail footprint, adding a new showroom in Beverly Hills to its existing 42 retail spaces across the country.
But it’s the only new thing for Brilliant Earth. The way people, particularly women and couples, are shopping for jewelry is changing, according to brand executives. More couples are searching for engagement rings together, and more women are buying jewelry for themselves. For jewelry brands that have long catered to gifting and solo engagement-ring shopping trips, a change in strategy is required.
Pam Catlett, the chief brand officer at Brilliant Earth and a former executive at Nike and Under Armour, told Glossy that Brilliant Earth has several new initiatives aimed at consumers’ changing jewelry habits.
Brilliant Earth’s new flagship “showroom of the future,” which opened in Beverly Hills on January 29, reflects a shift in its retail strategy. The new store is open to walk-in customers, situated in one of the busiest shopping neighborhoods in the country. While Brilliant Earth does have other stores that are open to the public, like one in Nolita that opened two years ago, most of its showrooms are out-of-the-way, appointment-only spaces that customers typically find through Brilliant Earth’s online channels.
“You wouldn’t even know many of them were there,” Catlett said.
But increasingly, Brilliant Earth is targeting shopping malls and heavier foot-traffic areas.
The new store is also catered toward the new ways people are shopping for jewelry. Data from the international jewelry retailer Diamonds Factory found that, in 2025, the number of couples who shopped for engagement rings together crossed 50%. At the new Brilliant Earth flagship, the brand will start hosting Date Nights for couples shopping together. The Date Nights feature a personalized walkthrough of jewelry options and the opportunity to design a ring, but with added features like food, drinks, music and time alone in the store.
“It’s a curated experience to really make the whole experience special,” Catlett said.
In addition, the company has begun hosting Bridal Collectives — quarterly in-store events held at various Brilliant Earth showrooms that include a product collaboration with a creative or influencer, as well as a curated edit of products. The first event was held on January 26 in New York City and featured Danielle & Alix, a celebrity styling and personal shopping duo who have worked with celebrities like Lindsay Lohan. The two curated an edit of bridal jewelry and co-hosted the event.
In essence, these events are building on the one-off collaborative events Brilliant Earth has hosted before, like the pop-up ice cream truck on the streets of Manhattan, which it operated over the summer with brand ambassador and tennis star Madison Keys, who handed out ice cream. Keys had previously worn Brilliant Earth jewelry while competing at the Australian Open and the U.S. Open.
For Catlett, these events represent a shift toward a community-first approach, turning Brilliant Earth’s stores into central hubs for repeated engagement among jewelry enthusiasts. A 2025 report from the British telecommunications authority Ofcom found that nearly half of consumers want more engagement through in-person events rather than interacting only with brands on social media.
With consumer confidence recently falling to its lowest level since 2014, community is an important way to maintain loyalty as consumers cut back on spending.
“Many of our customers, whether they buy in-store or online, will interact with the showroom at some point in their purchase journey,” Catlett said. “We want to activate more community engagement and build up our showrooms as hubs for all things bridal.”
Catlett said the team is also tracking another macro-trend in the jewelry sector: self-gifting. In 2021, 24% of diamond purchases were made by a customer for themselves rather than as a gift to someone else. By 2024, that number had risen to nearly 40%.
While bridal is the bulk of Brilliant Earth’s revenue, the company is now seeing non-bridal fine jewelry as the most common first interaction for many of its customers. That, in turn, means many women, when they come in to shop for engagement rings with their partners, already have an existing relationship with the brand. Fine jewelry sales at Brilliant Earth grew by 45% year over year in the last quarter.
Twenty-one-year-old Brilliant Earth as a whole has been on a positive streak in recent years. In November, it reported its 17th consecutive quarter of positive growth, with net quarterly sales up 10% year over year to $110 million. In the last quarter, it also delivered its highest-ever wedding and anniversary band appointments.
Catlett said further evolving the in-store experience will be key to keeping up that momentum.
“We’ve been really strategic about retail expansion; we’re not just trying to open as many stores as possible as fast as we can,” she said. “We are a ‘fewer, better locations’ kind of company.”
