Veeral Rathod explains why his jewelry stores have embraced lab-created diamonds and the Spence sensibility While many jewelry retailers wrestle with how to respond to the growing popularity of lab-grown diamonds, Spence Diamonds has embraced the trend with gusto. The Vancouver, British Columbia–based fine jewelry chain, which has stores in Canada plus California, Arizona, and Texas, produces a proprietary collection of lab-created diamonds that it retails alongside earth-mined diamonds and jewelry collections. Spence debuted its lab-grown diamond line, Artisan Created Diamonds, in 2017, and has seen the product become a primary sales ­driver, says Veeral Rathod, the company’s chief marketing officer. The retailer sells only lab-grown ­diamonds that grade high on the Four Cs, and Rathod adds that the recent introduction of larger lab-created diamonds into the market has been a bo