While on no other metric “for me” (including $500K price and <12 unit availability), I do think there’s something impressive (if garish) about this experiment by Tag. They’ve used lab-grown diamonds to create the entirety of the crown, an embedded mosaic in the case, and a “Diamond powder” encrustment of the dial I’m imagining a future lab-grown diamond (entire) bezels, Roman numerals, maybe even entire cases?
It'd be really cool if TAG hadn't decided that its lab-grown diamond had to cost more than real diamonds, though
I have some vague memory of hearing that lab grown diamonds (in contrast to fake diamonds) are still more expensive, though? Unfortunately, a quick google search only demonstrated a very active media battle between the two industries, with suspiciously one-sided pieces about why pan grown diamonds either are or aren’t awesome.
Well, the labor and material cost of synthetic diamonds is gonna be higher than the actual cost of real diamonds, since diamond values are essentially made up to be whatever the cartels decide they are. But because of that, real diamonds are fungible whereas lab diamonds aren't quite so