Some thoughts from Céline:

While this page will more than touch on sustainability and ethical sourcing, I want to start with what drew me to creating these pieces in the first place: everything. I was drawn in by the people, the haggling, the colors, the hours spent hunched sorting through sparkling things, the learning from people, the history, and so much more. I felt that my professional design life could so easily have been pulled the way of endless meetings and hours in front of a screen, and I didn’t want that. Creating de Vos felt the most sustainable for myself and my creative practice in the long term, and I would like to make a positive impact along the way. 

Everything is designed by me and made on 47th street, the Diamond District of New York. Although overseas production is cheaper, it was important to me to produce my pieces locally. I have an incredible and supportive jeweler, Paul, without whom I may have been dissuaded from many an idea. Paul is always down to talk and teach and work through the technical aspects of any design. And his stone setter Vitaly does a flawless job every time. I am very grateful to them both. Working small means I get to support (and be supported by) the industry on an individual level. 

The following paragraphs are about the ins and outs of ethical sourcing for this small brand. I have done my best to condense everything into a few lines below, but if you want more, read on. 

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While I hope to eventually switch to Fairmined gold, I don’t use “100% recycled gold” as that is a somewhat meaningless term. No gold has ever ended up in a landfill. 

Our diamonds are all Kimberly certified, which is the bare minimum and a legal requirement in the United States. Additionally, I work with a supplier who owns their own cutting facilities, ensuring good working conditions and pay to those they employ. Since I mostly use “melee” or smaller diamonds in my work, full traceability here is nearly impossible. 

Ethical sourcing in a supply chain that is still adapting is hard and expensive. Since I can’t get it right every time, I will donate 3% of my profit from anything purchased directly from me to Gem Legacy in an attempt to help build the fair and community-oriented system I would like to see in the future.

Pearls, especially saltwater pearls, are the most sustainable gem out there, and I love using them in my work.

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“100% recycled gold” is a very buzzy term right now, and I understand why. It is very applicable to most other industries. But the truth is that no gold has ever ended up in the landfill. Your jewelry and the materials in it are guaranteed a life, and then another, and then another. This is the way of precious, endlessly recyclable things. Purchasing “100% recycled” doesn’t do much for a robust industry that has been melting and remelting for as long as humans have been playing with precious metals. That being said, mining with mercury is very destructive to the environment and to the people who mine with it. While I am currently working with a reputable caster who uses a mix of recycled and eco-mined gold, I eventually hope to start casting in Fairmined gold, which is sourced from small and artisanal mining companies.

Our diamonds are all Kimberly certified, which is the bare minimum and a legal requirement in the United States. Additionally, I work with a supplier who owns their own cutting facilities, ensuring good working conditions and pay to those they employ. Since I mostly use “melee” or smaller diamonds in my work, full traceability here is nearly impossible. If you would like to use larger diamonds as part of a custom order, I am happy to work with you to find traceable, post-consumer, or antique stones, or work with something you already have. 

Sourcing gems is tricky, and although we are doing our best to catch up, the jewelry industry is behind. While traceable diamonds can be found easily on the market, colored stones with ethically sourced guarantees in standard sizes and cuts are much harder to find. Brands that give you a quick “all our stones are ethically sourced” quip (with the exception of amazing smaller designers like wwake) are likely stretching the truth. It’s not that those stones are certainly mined in poor conditions, it’s just that it is really hard to tell because the supply chain is very messy. In part, this is the natural result of a cottage industry of mining communities around the world who sell their rough stones to larger dealers to be cut and sold en masse. Unlike diamond mines, which are largely owned by just a few companies, semi-precious and precious colored stones are often mined by smaller communities. This gives people the ability to support themselves and create a livelihood from their land where farming may not be an option. However, their natural resources can be easily exploited if they don’t have access to proper equipment and training. 

This is why I am donating 3% of my profit from anything purchased directly from me to Gem Legacy in an attempt to help build the fair and community-oriented system I would like to see in the future. Gem Legacy is an incredible non-profit organization that works with small mining communities in East Africa to give them better access to education, safety equipment, and vocational training for things like gem cutting. Large-scale mining can be destructive, but artisanal mining can minimize those harms while directly benefiting the community. 

And last but not least, pearls. I love pearls, and especially the saltwater kind. They are as nature made them, polished by a seashell and as lustrous as the moon. Yes, they are doomed to be sullied by a human design; but alas, how else are we to attach them to our bodies? 

While you have likely heard of cultured pearls being eco-friendly gems, there is a large distinction between freshwater pearls and saltwater pearls, which are in a class of their own. Freshwater pearls come from mussels, saltwater pearls from oysters. Both are filter feeders that clean the environment around them. Freshwater cultured pearls are largely produced in China, and while they can help keep waterways clean, there is also some incentive to dirty the water in order to create prolific growth. This is often done by dumping livestock waste, providing lots of nutrients for the mussels while making the environment inhospitable for many other species. The mussels grow quickly, producing many pearls, and when harvested their meat is used for animal feed, and their shells are processed for other uses, such as nucleating the next batch of pearls. It's circular! 

In contrast, harvesting pearls from saltwater oysters is a much slower process, with far more positive impacts on the environment. As seawater is much colder, the pearls take longer to grow to size. The living oysters are quite valuable, and care is taken when extracting the pearls to keep the oysters alive and healthy, so they can be re-nucleated with more pearls. An oyster’s ecosystem is quite fragile, and as the industry is profitable it is within a government's interest to ensure clean and protected waterways. Most of the saltwater pearls on the market are from Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, French Polynesia and Australia. These include Tahitian Pearls, Golden and White South Sea Pearls, and Japanese Akoya Pearls. All are beautiful, with colors spanning from blue to green to golden. Sadly, climate change is having an impact on saltwater pearl production, with Akoya Pearls being especially hard hit, and prices rising steadily year to year. 

The very last thing I’d like to say in this ethics/sustainability musing is I think the most important of all: fine jewelry is an inherently sustainable craft. Built into its very nature are two of the most important pillars: longevity and recyclability. One way or another, your piece will live on, and on, and on.