Diamond Rings and the Economic Crisis
This is what happens in a recession. The jewelry market and the diamond market suffers. Still, some surprising outcomes have been reported.When I think about the diamond market in the face of the economic crisis, I have to wonder: Are diamonds essential to our lives? Are they seen as a romantic gesture or more often as an investment?
No doubt the business minded are aware that diamond jewelry doesn't rise in value very quickly. So why are we so obsessed with buying them?
I have to say, I was certain that with the global recession, the diamond market would simply crash. I thought that everyone would realize the luxury and excess inherant in diamonds. I thought they'd realize how impractical and unnecessary they are. I mean, a diamond is valuable only by abstract, symbolic and illusion inducing meanings, right? I was sure that once people were short on cash, their thinking would become practical and thrifty. Why shop for a special and quite expensive “stone” when you are having difficulty paying your bills?
But after a good day or two of pondering, contempating and surmising, the power of diamonds started to make more sense to me. Yes, their meaning is mostly symbolic, but the essence of this symbolism is what makes them somehow adaptive to crisis times. Sure, in some local markets diamond sales have dropped steeply and individuals who lost most of their assets won’t go shopping for diamonds anytime soon, but in less extreme cases diamonds remain on a consumer’s mind.
There is an unwritten rule that people tend to settle down more in crisis times. Feeling shortage somehow makes us distinguish more clearly between the important and the minor: people stop playing games, stop thinking only about their present pleasure and try to emphasize the deep and stable places in their lives and in their hearts.
We start to treasure our friends, family and significant others. We realize that in a world of stability, we need someone to help stablize us. And the diamond ring is so deeply engrained in our society as a symbol of love, support and unending devotion, that it becomes as essential as sliced bread.
Maybe this is a superficial way of thinking. However, we cannot deny the fact that diamonds’ symbolic value has been deeply embedded into our subconscious throughout the years. so much so, in fact, that a global economic crisis cannot cannot erase a diamonds’ significance.
I bumped into a former high school female friend of mine on the beach last week. It turns out she's getting engaged. The first thing she did when she broke the news was to excitedly lift up her left hand and point out the beautiful new diamond
ring.
ring. I brought up the economy and she told me that her fiancé just lost his job. But she immediately defented the ring. “A big marriage ceremony and a beautiful diamond ring are things couples shouldn’t compromise on, especially in times like these”, she said. “If you want to tie the knot, you should tie it tightly, otherwise it might unravel. We might have spent months of salary on the ring, but we're willing to compromise in other areas of our life. Let's put it this way: we aren't going to be going out to restaurants or bars very much in the next year."
In her mind, proposing and getting engaged, even if it invovles a big diamond ring expense, is still less fiscally irresponsible than going out to eat. In fact, the engagement ring expense might actually keep a man and a woman focused on their bond, not wanting to play around separately, go out to bars on their own and waste their money on other things.
But, is a diamond ring necessary to produce such a strong bond?I guess that if aliens arrived on earth and observed these human habits they would seem absurd. However, artificial and ritualist gestures are present in so many aspects of our lives. Maybe we humans just need rituals, norms, structures and habits in order to maintain balance in our lives. Luckily for diamond producers and vendors, diamonds always remain a romantic commitment inducing tool.
2 Comments | Posted By JessicaC
