John Hardy’s looking to new categories — with new collaborators in tow.

The jewelry brand, which turned 50 this year, is launching its Lovestruck collection Monday, which centers around lab-grown diamonds in a brand first. Concurrently, Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell are joining the brand as collaborators, and will have a hand in creative design projects and John Hardy‘s philanthropic efforts, the brand said.

“The connection was the idea of sustainability in luxury jewelry,” said Reed Krakoff, creative chairman of John Hardy. “The combination of sustainability is super important to both of them, and it’s something we connected on. I had begun the collection, I sent them sketches, they reacted really strongly.”

The emphasis on sustainability informed the collection, too. “I had spoken about this idea of lab-grown diamonds almost three years ago. I believe that Hardy was uniquely positioned to launch in the lab-grown space because there are many decades of history of Hardy engaging in sustainability. John Hardy himself was a conservationist,” Krakoff said. “It’s a part of the brand’s history and DNA.”

From a commercial standpoint, Krakoff also saw the opportunity for single-stone settings, particularly with diamonds. “Hardy didn’t have a business of single-stone settings,” he said. “We had pavé to some extent, and there was the business to protect as well. Most jewelers have massive businesses in single-stone.”

It took Krakoff, who joined the brand in 2022, a few years to ideate how John Hardy could do diamonds, or as he put it, “to develop something that felt proprietary, something that was unique, something that wasn’t just about lab-grown diamonds versus mined diamonds,” he said. “It was about this creative exploration into what can you do with non-mined diamonds, what can you do differently, and how do you take advantage?”

In that vein, the collection also highlights four proprietary diamond cuts, are set in reclaimed precious metals and produced in facilities that use 100 percent renewable energy sources.

“It took a long time to figure out how you create something that feels different in every way — the cut, the assortment itself,” Krakoff said. “We went back and forth between making sure we embrace the brilliance and beauty of a diamond but at the same time, do something surprising and different.”

Those cuts wound up mimicking what a diamond looks in its natural state. “Not necessarily totally in the rough, but the idea of something irregular that really can embrace and celebrate the natural aspect of what these stones are,” Krakoff said. “There’s something about no two being exactly the same, and we wanted to express that in a way that maintained it was cool, wearable and desirable at the same time.”

Krakoff then had to adjust the setting for each size of the ring. “It took an amazing level of craft for the artisans working on it to create something that looked great in a small size, looked great in a larger ring size and at every carat weight,” Krakoff said.

Given the lower price points of lab-grown stones, Krakoff wanted to create a collection that offered diamonds in a more casual context. “Mined diamonds are so important and serious. We wanted to embrace the idea that they can be designed and integrated into more casual and unexpected ways,” he said. “It was a comprehensive rethink of what are diamonds today, what can they be going forward and how can we make a difference in a space with a lot of sameness?”

Both the Lovestruck launch and the collaboration with Eilish and O’Connell come at an inflection point for the brand, which is seeing renewed interest since Krakoff refreshed the assortment, brought in more elevated materials and broadened distribution. Wholesale has increased by more than 50 percent, with key retailers including Nordstrom Inc., Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale’s and Neiman Marcus.

“I arrived happily at a time when people were ready to make and create a next chapter for the brand,” Krakoff said. “Spea was the first attempt of bringing in a new audience, or engaging an existing or lapsed customer, and creating excitement. We’ve introduced half a dozen new collections and many updates to the existing, and new customers have come into the brand. The business is super strong across all channels.”

The appetite for higher priced pieces John Hardy offers, in the $20,000 to $100,000 price range, is also high. “It’s been extraordinarily successful year-over-year, up almost 100 percent,” Krakoff said. “People don’t buy upper end jewelry from just anyone. They buy from people they feel a quality and value that they want to invest in.”