With the launch of the Disco Onyx Diamonds, at GWD 2025, Furlan Marri made a statement not only as far as its design is concerned, but also with regard to its position. Combining a black onyx dial and baguette-cut lab-grown diamonds, the watch produces an impressive look that intentionally plays on contrasts: the dark and the bright, the antique and the new, the natural and the artificial. However, beyond the visual beauty there is a story of the luxury industry moving and watchmakers redefining accessibility in a world that is more and more influenced by new materials.
A Watch Rooted in Contrasts
Furlan Marri has come to be associated with a combination of tradition and innovation, with an appeal to a younger generation of collectors who appreciate design and storytelling as much as mechanical complexity. This strategy is also continued by the Disco Onyx Diamonds.
The deep backdrop of the dial is made of Onyx, a natural gemstone, which is traditionally related to the protection. Around it, baguette cut lab-grown diamonds form the framework. This contrast is intentional: natural depth against synthetic sparkle. In traditional high horology, such gem-set watches would often be priced far out of reach for most collectors. By incorporating lab-grown diamonds, Furlan Marri lowers the entry barrier while maintaining an image of exclusivity. This is what some in the industry call “accessible luxury”, the idea that luxury can be aspirational but still obtainable, not reserved only for UHNWI.
Lab-Grown Diamonds and Their Place in Luxury
Lab-grown diamonds have increased in visibility across the jewellery and watch sectors. Chemically and optically identical to natural diamonds, they offer a way for brands to achieve high brilliance without the same sourcing costs. Their rise is linked to several factors: affordability, supply chain transparency and growing consumer demand for sustainability narratives.
From a purely factual perspective, lab-grown diamonds have helped brands like Furlan Marri offer gem-set creations at significantly lower prices than their natural counterparts would allow. They democratise a category that was once the preserve of big maisons like Cartier or Piaget, where gem-setting was both an art and an economic barrier.
Accessible Luxury: Promise and Paradox
The use of lab-grown stones raises important questions about the meaning of what is luxury nowadays. Traditionally, luxury has been defined by scarcity, natural rarity and craftsmanship. A natural diamond’s value stems from its geological story, formed over billions of years under extreme pressure and temperature deep within the Earth. On the other side, a lab-grown diamond can be created in weeks within a controlled environment.
This distinction matters. While the aesthetic results may appear identical, the sense of permanence and rarity that underpins luxury is altered. Lab-grown diamonds reduce costs and broaden access, but they also remove the element of geological uniqueness. As a result, the debate in the luxury sector is not whether lab-grown diamonds are beautiful – they are – but whether they can ever carry the same symbolic weight as their natural counterparts.
Accessible luxury, therefore, is both a promise and a paradox. Watches like the Disco Onyx Diamonds invite more people into the world of gem-set horology, but they also challenge traditional definitions of luxury. The consumer gains affordability and accessibility while the brand gains cultural relevance, but the trade-off is a shift in what “precious” truly means.
The Trend in Context
Furlan Marri is not alone. Major watch and jewellery houses have begun using lab-grown diamonds, either as a sustainability statement or as a way to control costs. In 2022, TAG Heuer unveiled a Carrera Plasma set with lab-grown diamonds, framing it as innovation. Fashion houses from Prada to Gucci have adopted them too. The trend shows that the conversation has shifted: lab-grown diamonds are no longer marginal, they are part of the mainstream vocabulary of luxury.
Even if the industry embraced these stones, many collectors remain sceptical. For them, the intangible value of a natural diamond including rarity, authenticity and the poetry of geological time, cannot be replicated in a laboratory. This reflects today’s luxury market: opening up to new generations of consumers, yet still questioning what truly makes something luxurious.
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