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Even at Paris’s Place Vendôme, the world center of high jewelry, e-mining has been making inroads since 2018, when the jewelry brand Courbet debuted. Founded by Manuel Mallen and Marie-Ann Wachtmeister, it also has investment from Chanel.
“From the beginning,” said Mr. Mallen, who has 30 years experience working in luxury, including with the Richemont Group, “the idea was to create the first ecological jewelry brand of Place Vendôme,” he said. “And there is two parts very important in the jewelry: the diamonds on one side and the gold on the other side. And from the beginning, we decided to have recycled gold.”
Courbet uses only lab-grown diamonds, which are made by recreating the heat and pressure conditions of a mined diamond, and works with Agosi, a waste management company based in Germany, to source electronic waste metal for its high-jewelry designs, which start at €350. The most expensive piece on its website is the Céleste necklace in yellow gold and accented with 5.25 carats of diamonds, priced at €21,800.
“I think that ecological is everywhere today,” said Mr. Mallen, adding that half of the brand’s sales are engagement rings and wedding bands, bought by customers he described as 25 to 35 years old who have grown up with concern for the environment.
“They don’t want to celebrate something that’s very important for them with a gold or a diamond which damaged the earth,” he said.
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