The shift

Inclusion-positive marketing refers to the deliberate trade and consumer-education effort, accelerating from approximately 2010 onward, to reframe the visible internal features of natural gemstones from flaws to be hidden into features to be celebrated. The movement reflects a generational shift in consumer attitudes, the rise of social-media-driven aesthetic preferences, and a strategic response by the natural gemstone trade to the encroachment of synthetic alternatives.

Historical context

The conventional twentieth-century trade approach to inclusions was to minimise their visibility through careful cutting, to mask them through mounting design, and to treat them through chemical or thermal intervention. The clarity grading systems, particularly the GIA diamond clarity scale, ranked stones by inclusion visibility, with internally flawless and flawless grades commanding the highest premiums. The implicit framing was that the perfect stone was the inclusion-free stone, and any visible inclusion reduced the stone's value.

This approach fitted the diamond trade in particular, where extensive treatment, exact cutting, and rigorous grading all aimed at maximising perceived clarity. It fitted the coloured-stone trade less well, since most natural coloured stones contain inclusions that are part of the stone's identity. The Colombian emerald's three-phase inclusions, the Burmese ruby's silk, the Kashmir sapphire's velvety silk, and the alexandrite's growth zoning are all signatures of the natural origin and are diagnostic of the stones in laboratory examination.

The synthetic encroachment

The acceleration of synthetic gemstone production in the 2010s, particularly synthetic diamond from CVD and HPHT processes, created a new market dynamic. Synthetic stones could be produced inclusion-free or with minimal inclusions, and their growth in the diamond market was substantial. By 2025, synthetic diamonds had reached approximately twenty percent of US engagement-ring stone unit sales by volume, with significant penetration in the lower price segments.

The natural diamond trade's response, organised principally through the Natural Diamond Council (formerly the Diamond Producers Association), has emphasised the natural origin and the geological story of mined diamonds, with inclusions reframed as evidence of natural formation rather than as flaws to be minimised. The marketing emphasises the billion-year formation story, the rarity of natural occurrence, and the inclusion as a personal fingerprint.

The coloured stone trade's parallel approach

The coloured stone trade has moved in a similar direction, with major dealers, designers and trade associations promoting inclusions as features. The trend is most visible in: bespoke and artisan jewellery design, where inclusion-rich stones are deliberately selected and showcased; the salt-and-pepper diamond category, in which heavily included diamonds are marketed as deliberate aesthetic choices; the emerald market, where the Colombian three-phase inclusion is positioned as the signature of authentic Colombian origin; and the rough-stone movement, in which uncut or partially shaped natural stones are mounted in their natural form.

The salt-and-pepper diamond market in particular illustrates the dynamic. These stones, which were once unsaleable industrial-grade material, now trade at prices comparable to clear diamonds in the lower carat ranges, driven by social-media aesthetic preferences and by independent designer demand. The shift is not merely marketing; it has translated into actual price action.

The educational dimension

Inclusion-positive marketing requires consumer education, since the conventional clarity-as-quality framing is deeply established in consumer expectations. The educational effort has multiple components: laboratory grading reports that describe inclusion type and origin in plain language; jeweller training that emphasises inclusion narratives; social-media content showing inclusions under magnification with positive framing; and partnerships with design and lifestyle media to reposition the visual language around inclusions.

The GIA, AGTA and ICA have all issued educational material on inclusions as origin evidence. Lotus Gemology, in Bangkok, has been particularly active in promoting the educational role of inclusion documentation, with founder Richard Hughes' published work on coloured-stone inclusions serving as a major reference.

The contradiction with treatment

The inclusion-positive movement sits in some tension with the trade's continued use of treatment to mask or alter inclusions. Heat treatment of corundum dissolves silk inclusions; oil treatment of emerald masks fissures; fracture filling in diamond hides feathers. The marketing reframing of inclusions as features does not automatically extend to a critique of treatment, and many trade actors continue to support both: visible inclusions as features for stones in the inclusion-positive segment, and aggressive treatment for stones in the conventional clarity-driven segment.

The CIBJO and LMHC treatment disclosure guidelines apply across the trade regardless of marketing framing, and the buyer's discipline of laboratory verification of treatment status remains essential. A stone marketed as having beautiful inclusions may still have undergone treatment that the buyer should know about.

The ethical dimension

Inclusion-positive marketing also intersects with the broader ethical-sourcing movement in coloured stones. Artisanal mining production, which dominates global coloured-stone supply, generally yields stones with more inclusions than the larger industrial-mined diamond production, simply because the mining and selection processes are different. Promoting inclusion-rich stones therefore aligns with promoting artisanal-source production, and several major artisanal-mining initiatives (including Moyo Gems, Pact, the ARM-certified emerald, and the Fair Trade Gem programmes) explicitly emphasise inclusion-positive framing as part of their consumer narrative.

The connection is not absolute; some artisanal production yields very clean stones, and some industrial production yields heavily included material. But the broader correlation has supported the inclusion-positive movement's credibility with ethically motivated consumers.

Generational and aesthetic factors

The shift to inclusion-positive marketing reflects underlying generational and aesthetic preferences. Millennial and Gen Z consumers, who now constitute the principal new-jewellery purchasing demographic, have shown distinct preferences for: authentic and natural materials; storytelling and provenance; visible imperfection as evidence of authenticity; and individuality over uniformity. Inclusion-positive marketing aligns with each of these preferences in ways that the conventional clarity-driven framing does not.

The aesthetic shift parallels broader trends in consumer goods, including the wabi-sabi aesthetic in design, the raw-edge movement in furniture, and the embrace of patina and wear in fashion. The jewellery market's adoption of inclusion-positive marketing is part of this broader aesthetic and value shift, not an isolated trade development.

The trade's future

For the working trade, inclusion-positive marketing represents both an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity is to differentiate natural stones from synthetic alternatives on the basis of their inclusion signature, to broaden the market for stones that the conventional grading system would have rated as low quality, and to align with the values of the emerging consumer demographic. The challenge is to do this without abandoning the analytical rigour and disclosure standards that the trade depends on for credibility.

The likely trajectory is a gradual broadening of the inclusion-positive segment within the broader market, with continued strong demand for high-clarity stones in the conventional luxury segment and growing demand for inclusion-rich stones in the artisan, designer and salt-and-pepper segments. The two segments will coexist, with different price dynamics, different buyer demographics, and different marketing narratives.