All That Glitters: Diamonds and the Cultivation of Desire

“Where It Begins”: The new De Beers ad campaign features Global Ambassador Lupita Nyong’o. Full-page ad in Town and Country magazine, February 2023.

Once upon a time, in the middle of the 20th century, diamonds were not a girl’s best friend or the sine qua non of a marriage proposal. If average Americans thought about diamonds at all, it was as emblems of impossible luxury — think of “Diamond Jim” Brady, the Gilded Age financier of legendary appetites — or utilitarian value: diamond drills, the diamond stylus in a record player.