From our Female Correspondent: Lezlie on gemmology
“Gemmology is a wing of mineralogy that focuses on the study of precious gemstones and ornamental materials. This includes your diamonds, your rubies, your sapphires - but also things like corals and jet, which is fossilised wood.”
The world of work is an exciting place, especially these days. For every run-of-the-mill career, there are dozens that are; so cool you can’t believe someone actually does them (astronaut), so new your grandparents can barely conceptualise them as a way to make money (YouTuber) or so old-school you are amazed people still do them.
For me, a job where you spend all day studying diamonds through a loupe sounds charmingly Dickensian, a job reserved for old men with grey beards and pince-nez.
Enter Lezlie. Scientist, jewellery-lover and gatekeeper of good taste – this is what the modern gemmologist looks like.
Lezlie B. Bermuda-born Queen of Gems.
“You hold a loose diamond and it just…does something to you.” A lifelong lover of jewellery, Lezlie’s first experience of gemmology came during her year 11 work experience at a jeweller’s. “One day, the gemmologist and I took £800 in cash, went up to London and spent the day buying diamonds and rubies. I was like… this is a pretty sick job!”
But there is a lot more to it than simply buying sparkly things.
What does a gemmologist really do?
She spent three years at University College London before taking a 2-year diploma at Gem-A (the Gemmological Association of Great Britain) where she began to dive deeper into the world of gems. The course focused on learning to identify gemstones and other materials, being able to differentiate the precious from the semi-precious, the truly special from the imitations. “When it comes to precious stones, it’s about identifying key features, identifying treatments, identifying whether it’s natural or synthetic - and all of that is about putting a value on any given item.”
This assigning of monetary value makes up the lion’s share of Lezlie’s work now, in a gem laboratory at the heart of London’s jewellery district, Hatton Garden. “It’s the hardest part of what I do, because the industry is so subjective. It’s basically trying to apply scientific techniques to something which is, at its core, very artistic.”
Gemmology is a discipline which marries science and technology with creativity and flair. It requires a keen grasp of physics and chemistry, a deep love of jewellery and an understanding of trends. “You have to be passionate to work in this industry, because this job isn’t easy. In my interview my boss said: ‘Sometimes I look at a diamond and I think – wow – and I get more excited than when I see a beautiful woman. Do you get that excited?’ And I do!”
Lezlie’s lab provides certification services for everyone from manufacturers and auction houses to jewellers or people coming in off the street. Anyone can get a gem certified – to sell it or to insure it – but the lack of understanding around the value of jewellery can make it a pricey. “We had a man come in whose grandmother had a safe full of jewellery – one piece was a Cartier necklace, but the rest was just standard costume jewellery. I would really recommend people do a bit of research before bringing things into the lab because you can spend £200 certifying a piece of quartz that’s worth a tenner.”
All that glitters is not…good
The most exciting bit of Lezlie’s job, however, is when the real deal crosses her bench. “Once you dive into the jewellery industry, you realise how many different levels there are. There is jewellery that us normal people – even if we saved up money – would never be able to see.”
“One of my favourite pieces to date was this gorgeous Bulgari necklace. It had giant emerald-cut sapphires and rubies - it was just absolutely stunning. And I would never in my life be able to see something like that otherwise, so that was amazing.”
Which is not to say that everything she sees is the pinnacle of good taste. From cocktail rings the size of a baby’s head to actual grills, Lezlie has seen it all. “The worst use of diamonds I’ve seen to date was a rosary-inspired beaded necklace. There were diamond beads making up the chain, then there was a sphere set all around with diamond rose cuts (which have a flat back on them – essentially thin slices of diamond) and some more diamond bead tassels and… I just wanted to cry.”
Thankfully for people with more money than taste, Lezlie’s never lets her personal feelings jeopardise a valuation. “My boss explained that I am like a lawyer: anything that I say people will believe, and the certification document is like the judgement. Anything I say has to be as accurate and unbiased as possible. So just because my personal taste thinks this is trash…doesn’t mean it is trash. I’ve become such a snob because of working here…!”
Addressing the lack of diversity in the jewellery business
Lezlie is, in her own words, working her dream job. But it is not an industry without issues. “Diversity is a massive problem. I realised that out of the whole Hatton Garden area, I have only ever seen two other Black people regularly.” One of the two, she explains, owns a shop on the outskirts of Hatton Garden, the only space he could get. “When he first started working here, people wouldn’t sell diamonds to him. One of the Orthodox Jewish men who comes into the lab a lot had to take money and go to buy diamonds for him so he wouldn’t be refused or ripped off.”
She goes on to describe going to a gem expo in Munich and being hyper-aware of being one of the only few Black people present. “I was talking to some guys about some rocks they had, and they were very interested in where I come from, because they also had never seen another Black gemmologist. I feel like I’m a bit…tropical at the minute. Which is problematic.”
Her own experiences, particularly coinciding with a long-overdue surge of interest in the Black Lives Matter movement, have galvanised Lezlie to change this situation. “Honestly there aren’t a lot of people in general who know about gemmology or the wider jewellery industry, so I decided I could put my energy towards making my industry more accessible for people like me, because there is no reason why it couldn’t be.”
Creating a network for Black professionals
Her goal? To create a network for Black jewellery industry professionals. “I know there must be some of us out there, but if you Google Black jewellers, gemmologists…nothing comes up. So, I want to be able to at least change that. If people want to support a Black business, there is at least a database people can go to.”
She has spent her lockdown researching, blogging and making connections. Networks already exist for global gemmologists and women working in the jewellery industry but these, she says, are still overwhelmingly populated by professionals who are white or Asian. “The success of these networks have given me a lot of hope – some have got up to 40,000 members – so I want to be able to create something similar but for Black professionals.” She has also issued a clarion call to these networks to educate themselves on the issues surrounding diversity and inclusion in the industry. “I have to remind people that most of the materials that we use in this industry come from countries where black and brown people are the majority. So there needs to be more respect.”
This raises another issue, one which Lezlie explains the jewellery industry has never been able to shake off: that of ethical mining and the procurement of gemstones. “People ask me all the time, ‘oh, do you get any blood diamonds?’ And that’s the problem – you can’t tell by looking at them. There are actually very intricate processes in place to try and track diamonds, although they don’t all work that well. There are also lots of organisations helping artisanal miners and women across Africa starting their own small mining companies, but at the end of the day the funding shouldn’t be coming from a random white family from Oklahoma. It should be coming from De Beers, it should be coming from Tiffany, it should be coming from Bulgari, because they’re the ones who benefit the most from these things.”
The industry clearly has a long way to go, but with this modern gemmologist at the helm, I’m fairly certain change is on its way.
You can find out more about Lezlie and the work she’s doing on her website and or her sparkly, sparkly Instagram.
Quickfire questions
Favourite gem?
“That is such a hard question - It changes week to week – I’ll have to go for a top three!”
1) “Tourmaline. A nice pastel pink tourmaline, because I love pink.”
2) “Spinel. I love spinels - they’re really hard wearing, they get really good lustres so you can shine them up nicely so they get super sparkly, and they come in lots of different colours.”
3) “Alexandrite is pretty cool. If you wear it outside in daylight it looks blue, then inside under incandescent light it looks red. It’s actually like magic.”
Most underrated gem?
“Moonstone. Only because I highly underrated this gem and then I saw a really good example and was like ‘wow, this is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen’. People only ever see moonstones that are milky blue, but you can get ones that have flashes of orange and green and really cool inclusions in them. That’s the most underrated moonstone. And anything from the Feldspar family of gems, like labradorite, moonstones, sunstones, all of those are really good.”
