HEIREST is the made-to-order fine jewellery brand making lab-grown diamonds feel like a treat you’re allowed to buy yourself. It has just launched in Australia, and its tennis bracelets and pinky rings are already the pieces everyone wants.

Some brands are born in a boardroom. HEIREST was born in a group chat.

Founder Liam Whittaker watched his friends, the kind who curate everything online, enter a giveaway to win a diamond tennis bracelet. They clearly wanted one. They just couldn’t justify the $10,000 price tag. With an engineering mind and a career in big-scale retail, he went looking for a better way.

Before HEIREST had a name, a website or a single ad, he’d sold more than $500,000 of jewellery through his personal Instagram, all of it by word of mouth. That told him everything. Women want to mark life’s big moments with fine jewellery, and price is the only thing in the way.

Today HEIREST pieces are designed online, finished by hand and delivered in packaging so beautiful the unboxing is an event of its own (yes, there’s a signature scent). More than half are bought by women for themselves, to celebrate a new baby, a promotion, a milestone birthday, and the occasional very happy divorce.

We talked tennis bracelets, pinky rings, the push present that broke Instagram, and the piece he says is about to have its moment next.

HEIREST started when you watched your friends trying to win a diamond bracelet in a competition. What was it about that moment that made you think, “I can do this better”?

The lightbulb moment was seeing friends, who were usually so curated online, entering a giveaway for a tennis bracelet. It told me they really wanted one but couldn’t justify the price. When I learnt the bracelet cost $10,000, my engineering brain kicked in. I started investigating the cost of traditional jewellery retail and realised there had to be a better way. By building a digitally native brand without the overheads of traditional boutiques, we could make fine jewellery more accessible. The demand was always there – affordability was the barrier.

You came from Walmart, which is a long way from fine jewellery. What did that retail background teach you that you brought into HEIREST?

“I came from a career that taught me the power of scale. When working with the likes of Walmart, you get a scale of manufacturing that means you can create products far cheaper than competitors, and price them competitively to get customers to prioritise your brand vs. others. That scale also gives you scale of marketing, so you get this amplified positive effect on your business. Whilst HEIREST isn’t anchored in scale through distribution, I learnt very quickly that we could have a price advantage (10% to 40%) vs. legacy jewellers, and so we could drive more purchases because of price accessibility. Jewellery is inherently word-of-mouth driven. People notice what you’re wearing, ask about it and share it with others – making every piece a potential conversation starter.

The brand grew very quickly, and organically. What do you think made people fall in love with it so fast?

Before HEIREST was even a concept, I sold over $500,000 of jewellery through my personal Instagram with no brand, website or advertising – purely through word of mouth. That taught me two things: people want to celebrate life’s milestones with fine jewellery, but price can be a barrier, and word of mouth is incredibly powerful. HEIREST was built around both insights. We make fine jewellery more accessible through a lower cost base and real-time pricing transparency, while investing heavily in packaging to create an exceptional at-home experience worth talking about and sharing.

The HEIREST experience is gorgeous, from the box to the personalised scent. Why was it so important to you that buying a piece feels like an event?

We knew we had to over-invest in the at-home experience to rival the service traditional brands offer in-store. I always found it strange that customers could spend thousands on fine jewellery and receive a basic unboxing experience. For us, it was about creating something truly memorable – from the packaging to the personalised scent. It makes buying fine jewellery feel like an occasion in itself. In a digital-first world, personalisation and those moments of surprise and delight matter more than ever, and we want HEIREST to lead the way.

 

The mum and baby ring was everywhere on Instagram after Rachel Wyld’s push present moment. What was it like watching that piece take off, and why do you think it struck such a chord?

The jewellery category is so overwhelming for customers – so many designs, variations, concepts. What I think resonated so greatly about Rach’s ring design was the symbolism behind the stone selection and what the ring was marking. Mum’s watching Rach’s unboxing could picture themselves designing the same thing to celebrate the birth of their new child – a Toi Et Moi ring with a diamond and their baby’s birthstone, with mum and dad’s birthstone underneath the band.

More than half of HEIREST pieces are bought by customers for themselves. Who is the woman buying her own diamonds, and what is she celebrating?

Our traditional customer is a 35 – 55yr old woman, who’s wanting to purchase a piece of fine jewellery to celebrate a key milestone in her life (birth of a child, promotion at work, milestone birthday, even a few divorce purchases!). What’s changed is the fact she can now design whatever she wants, and is able to do so at a price that doesn’t feel too far out of reach.

Fine jewellery used to be saved for special occasions. Now people are wearing diamonds every day. What changed?

Very practically, the rise of lab-grown diamonds has transformed the category. Despite only being 15% of engagement ring sales in the US in 2020, as of last year they now represent 61% of sales – it’s clear that customers now understand these stones are structurally, chemically and optically identical, but are sold at a fraction of the price of mined diamonds. Most of this growth has occurred in the engagement context, but now we see woman buying fine jewellery that contains lab-grown diamonds to celebrate key milestones in her life. It’s all to do with price accessibility.

Tennis bracelets and pinky rings are your bestsellers right now. Why those two pieces, and how do you love to see them worn?

Tennis bracelets, to me, are the biggest benefactor of lab-grown diamond adoption. Because there’s so many diamonds in a bracelet, the price of a lab-grown tennis bracelet is a fraction of what it used to be in a mined-diamond configuration (~30% of the price). People see tennis bracelets as a timeless, daily wear piece, so I think they see the fact they could get a lot of mileage out of use (vs. a piece that is only for special occasions) and represents something they once wanted, but could never afford to buy. We also love seeing customers purchase pinky rings – we find these incredibly expressive for customers, and they can really let their personalities shine!

Which pieces do you think are about to have their big moment next?

I think tennis necklaces are next. We saw strong interest in Sydney, particularly for special events. As gold prices stabilise and customers discover how options like 9k gold can make these pieces more accessible, I expect demand to grow – especially heading into summer. At HEIREST, you can design a tennis necklace for under $10,000, compared with $50,000–$100,000 or more for a comparable natural diamond piece in 18k gold.

If someone is buying their first piece of fine jewellery for themselves, what is your one piece of advice?

Buy something you’ll wear often – fine jewellery is made to be worn, not kept in a box! Think about how and where you’ll wear it, too. For pieces like necklaces and earrings, 9K or 14K gold can be a great alternative to 18K, freeing up budget for a larger diamond, another piece of jewellery or something else meaningful in your life.