Philipe Henriques has always had reservations about the diamond industry. “I’m pretty sure a lot of us have seen the movie Blood Diamond,” the high school social studies teacher said.
The 2006 film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a diamond smuggler in civil war-era Sierra Leone, where warlords force captive men to sift for the precious stones through muddy water at gunpoint. “I don’t think it’s always like that,” he said. “But I still think there are a lot of injustices.”
Even so, Henriques knew he’d need to give his girlfriend, Marjorie Gonzalez, a diamond engagement ring when he proposed. In June, he designed a lab-grown stone at Philippe and Co., a jeweler in Montreal, and presented it to Gonzalez, who called it the “ring of her dreams.”
He was satisfied, too. His conscience was clear, like the pear-shaped diamond he bought, which was set in a gold band with a tapered finish, smaller diamonds working their way up to the main stone.
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