No Pressure, No Diamonds: Launching Diamonds by Pandora

In 1947, the phrase A Diamond is Forever came into our cultural parlance thanks to copywriter Frances Gerety. In 1953, Marilyn Monroe sang Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend, dressed in magenta, dripping in diamonds. And in 2022, Pandora Jewelry’s newest collection is showcasing that diamonds aren’t just forever—they are for everyone.

Ever an iconoclast, the brand launched Diamonds by Pandora last week, offering exquisitely-crafted lab-grown diamonds. To celebrate the launch, they tapped us to design a 360º campaign, with the aim of moving away from the sense of exclusivity that shrouds diamonds, and towards an attitude of democratizing diamonds. Rather than relying on celebrity names to carry our thinking, we conceived a maverick seeding campaign, gifting women who posted milestone moments on their social profiles, from getting their PhDs to surviving cancer to buying their first home. Pandora customers and their unconventional milestones became the heart and center of the campaign, shifting the idea that a diamond is only for engagements; instead, diamonds should be and are for every finger and every occasion.

To further celebrate milestones and the launch, we invited our gift recipients to an intimate brunch in the heart of New York, alongside press and media. As live events are once again a tentpole moment, the brunch was the perfect opportunity for New Moon to not only show off the multifaceted nature of our campaign, but to highlight and showcase the craftsmanship behind every piece of The Brilliance collection.

We began with moodboards, guided by the 4Cs of diamonds: cut, clarity, color, carat. The 4Cs allowed us to play with different textures, light & shadows, and dichotomous elements, highlighting the multidimensionality inherent to diamonds, whether they’re man-made or earth-made. Diamonds are finely cut, but they are also tough; they shine brilliantly, but are borne of dark carbon as it comes into contact with extreme heat and pressure. Our illustrious creative director Emilie Joy brought this friction to life in our tablescapes, which “gestured towards mines—mini, micro, marble, shungite, and concrete terrains—a playful abstraction of excavated landscapes.” By contrasting the rough elements of mines with the polish and shine of Pandora’s Lab Diamonds, we brought to light tangible ways to think about diamonds, highlighting the transformational process behind each stone.

We also wanted to juxtapose old world grandeur with contemporary space, so we designed our brunch to be a more inclusive take on the traditional, static fashion salon, creating an inviting space designed to create conversation. In keeping with the campaign’s pathos, we aimed to cultivate a space where every single guest felt special and pampered, to really internalize the knowledge that this brunch and this collection was made for them. We invited gemologist Olga Gonzalez to shed light on the qualities of a brilliant diamond, dispelling myths and providing information that isn’t always easily accessible. To emphasize the energy of democratization, we added little winks in our experiential design, reframing traditional symbols of gatekeeping into new gestures. Inspired by artist Ulla Von Brandenburg and her penchant for referential remixes, our CD Emilie installed an aubergine opera drape, a fun and theatrical way to “pull back the curtain on a heavily gate-kept industry.”

New York has long been a major diamond trade center and the birthplace of cinematic diamond mythologies—what better place to disrupt that cultural concept and introduce a new way of wearing the stones? By contextualizing and then decontextualizing diamonds through our milestone seeding campaign, a social content series that included on-the-street guerilla gifting, and the brunch, New York and New Moon hosted a new perception of diamonds, a cultural shift that urges us to rethink traditions, rituals, celebrations and of course, accessorizing.

If you want to hear more about the processes, thinking, and creative inspirations behind our experiential designs, drop us a line!

With Love & Diamonds,

New Moon ????