In the luxury watch world, Material Good has built a reputation as one of the industry’s most astute retailers, thanks to its selection of rare new and pre-owned timepieces curated by Yoni Ben-Yehuda, the company’s head of watches.
The New York City–based retailer’s many watch fans may be surprised to learn that the company—which operates stores in the city’s SoHo neighborhood, Miami Beach, Dallas, and, as of this fall, Boston—has an equally strong footprint in jewelry. On a recent video call, the two masterminds of that operation—Teresa Panico, Material Good’s director of marketing and fine jewelry, and Atara Lev, its head of design—spoke to JCK about the state of the bridal business circa 2025; what they say to customers who inquire about lab-grown; and the growing appeal of natural fancy color diamonds, especially yellows and browns.
Colored diamonds “are just so different,” Panico says. “Nothing brings us more joy than when people come back to us and say, ‘Everyone always asks where I got this,’ or, ‘I’ve never seen that before.’ That’s what excites us. And I think it excites the client, too.”
The conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
When did you start to feature yellow diamonds in your jewelry mix?
Teresa Panico: We started incorporating yellow diamonds into our designs two, three years ago.
Atara Lev: In terms of engagement rings, it had always been on and off with people asking for fancy yellows. But over the last two, three years, we really started putting them into not quite everyday pieces, but not just engagement and bridal styles. And it really took off. Our clients hadn’t seen anything like that before. We did quite a few custom pieces for some of our clients. And then people started layering them in with their white diamond pieces, particularly bracelets.
Panico: And then we started incorporating them into our Muse design, which is Atara’s design: It’s a pear-shape stone set in our Muse setting. And then we said, “Let’s make an elevated Muse pendant in a yellow.” And we sold them right away.
Atara: Even simple studs. Our clients had already been pivoting away from the traditional round brilliants into fancy shapes. And once they saw things like fancy yellow heart-shape studs, we couldn’t keep them in stock.
What do you think is driving the shift to yellows?
Panico: I feel like we’ve unintentionally become trendsetters because we see stuff and say, “That’s really cool. What if we did it like this? What if we paired it with this?” And then we put it in the case, style it, shoot it, and put it on Instagram. And that makes people feel like they can wear it every day, because of how we’re styling it. So I think it was more that they understood it and were like, “Oh, it’s different. No one has that.”
Lev: Also, our clients have been taking a turn toward color in general. Not that there’s been an exhaustion with white diamonds because, obviously, that’s never going to happen, but I think especially with social media—there’s just so much out there—a lot of it looks like the same thing, just regurgitated in different ways. I think for them to see color in this fresh new light, people really resonated with that.
What shades of yellow are you using?
Panico: We typically stay in the lights, more pale. Some of our higher-end pieces are more vivid, but even then, it’s not intensely vivid.
Lev: I would say for certed diamonds, the most saturated we would go is fancy yellow. Nothing fancy intense, nothing fancy vivid. It just looks too much.
Do you think that the interest in yellows is driven by people’s desire to differentiate their diamonds from a lab-grown look?
Lev: That’s the hot topic these days, right? I mean, definitely. In our industry, all of these white diamond dealers are turning to color because it is a way to differentiate. People think it’s more real because it’s color. And not just fancy yellow diamonds—colored gemstones, too. They’re so popular right now, and I think it’s because they feel more real to people.
How do you talk to customers who ask about lab-grown?
Lev: People will ask us if we carry them. And I say no. And if they press me on it, I find that people either have their mind made up or they can be spoken to about it. The people that have their mind made up, I’m just like, “There’s a place in the market for everybody. And if that’s how you’d like to spend your money, obviously, go right ahead.”
For people that can be spoken to, this is literally how I start: I ask them if they’ve ever seen one of these facilities because when you hear “lab,” you think of a clean, sterile environment and “We’re furthering science.” And then when they see images of these HPHT [high-pressure, high-temperature] or CVD [chemical vapor deposition] facilities, they’re like, “Whoa.” I’m like, “It’s literally a factory. It should be called ‘factory-made.’”
And then you have those special clients that understand how special natural diamonds are and the value in them. And those are our kind of clients.
Have you seen interest in other types of natural colored diamonds?
Lev: I did an engagement ring a few weeks ago, and the bride specifically wanted a warmer diamond. We were looking at J-K-L stones because she was like, “It feels softer. It feels more romantic.” She was doing a yellow gold setting, and it really picked up a lot of that warmth.
And is there a lot of sticker shock when customers realize how much fancy color pieces can cost?
Panico: Atara and I did a crazy custom fancy yellow bracelet for a client. They were all certed. I believe they were fancy intense. And that same client wanted a pear-shape east-west fancy yellow. There is that need and clientele for the higher-end stuff. And then we just sold a crazy 20-carat lozenge, a modified lozenge. So people are getting fun and they’re more open. It’s really nice to present this stuff to our clients and it catches their eye right away.
Have you seen any other general trends with regards to shapes or sizes or styling?
Lev: Hearts have definitely taken an uptick. Historically, for my entire 15-year career, I’ve disliked heart shapes.
Panico: I love them!
Lev: But they’re slowly growing on me. I’ve been making some heart-shape pieces that I actually thought, “I would wear that.” When you make it with that sort of intention—“I would wear this”—we can’t keep it in.
Panico: The pear marquise vibe is very MG, and I think we incorporate that anytime we can into what we’re doing. And our clients love it.
What about the engagement or bridal ring arena—what are you seeing there?
Panico: Step-cut pears.
Lev: I just made a crazy beautiful fancy brown diamond ring. It was a fancy brownish yellow, a pear shape, a three and a half carat, but it looks like a five with white diamond step-cut pear sides. I did it in our Daphne style, which is two pear shapes inverted as a ring. I love incorporating them. They’re always a little unexpected.
How have diamond jewelry sales fared in general this year?
Panico: Full transparency, we’ve noticed a bit of a slowdown with white diamond engagement rings. That’s why we’re trying to do cooler, more alternative things. I think everyone in the industry feels that. Like we said, we’re shifting our focus to color and our own line and building that out.
With the finished jewelry, our clients are still buying. We’re up year-over-year right now. So I feel good about it, but I think it’s also about having options for every stage of that client’s journey. If they don’t have the diamond classics and they know to come to us, great. If they already have that stuff, what else can we offer them? How can we shift them into more everyday things? We’re doing a lot with heavy gold now, a lot of gold and color together just to run the gamut and give everyone the full scope of what they can choose from, to make sure that when someone walks in, that there really is something for everyone. And even from a price point perspective. Our clusters that Atara designed, our little clusters, they range from $1,400 to a little over $2,000.
Lev: They’ve been really popular because they can be done in any color. So it’s been a popular birthstone type of thing. But we’ve been selling a lot of the ruby ones, the emerald ones. I think it’s an easy way for people to incorporate color. They don’t have to spend too much. It’s a piece of fine jewelry, and it’s easy. But like Teresa mentioned, even with the upturn in gold pricing, people still want heavy chunky gold, which is great.
Panico: They see it as an investment. You could argue that today’s quiet luxury is owning gold because it is so expensive. And if you know, you know.
Top: Ring in 18k yellow gold and platinum with 3.52 ct. fancy brownish-yellow diamond and 0.05 ct. t.w. white diamonds, $50,000
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