Under a black-and-white framed photo of the New York skyline, a bottle of Moet & Chandon champagne cools in the private bridal salon at Tiffany’s flagship Shanghai store, while white roses and love poems set the mood for China’s Romeo to pop the question to his Juliet.
The room, dotted with splashes of the jeweler’s iconic eggshell blue, has been busy of late, as young Chinese, drawn by the allure of diamonds, increasingly choose the sparkling gems over traditional gold baubles to mark their marriage vows.
China’s diamond market, now the world’s second largest after the United States, has more than tripled to US$22.8 billion over the last five years, according to data from market research firm Euromonitor, steadily gobbling up market share from gold and far outstripping the growth rate in China’s 465 billion yuan (HK$586.3 billion) jewelry sector.
“(In China) we now have more and more young people making their declarations and proposal ceremonies within our bridal rooms,” said Stephane Lafay, Tiffany’s head of Asia Pacific and Japan, who said couples were attracted to the romantic image of the jeweler’s well-known “little blue box”.
At the centre of the trend are China’s 13 million brides each year, who are increasingly demanding diamonds.