Modern Jewelry Trends

The jewelry industry benefits from the marketing of gold, platinum, and now even palladium. Today silver also jumped into the metal-marketing mix. The Silver Institute, a non-profit association of silver miners, refiners, bullion suppliers, manufacturers, and other silver industry members announced it would fund a new campaign to market silver jewelry to consumers. The silver marketing initiative will combine what the institute describes as a “media and grassroots campaign” to increase awareness and encourage consumers to buy sterling silver jewelry. Although it’s not clear if that will include consumer advertising, the Silver Institute is following gold’s lead in one way: it has hired Michael Barlerin Associates as a marketing consultant. Barlerin was CEO, Americas of World Gold Council for 15 years. Why silver, why now? The institute has funded advertising in the past but has been largely absent from all jewelry industry marketing or PR for years. “The consensus of our executive committee is that the time is right to introduce an industry-supported marketing program in the U.S., with the initial focus being on silver jewelry,” explains Michael DiRienzo, the institute’s executive director. With silver recently named the top jewelry trend by Modern Jeweler, we do agree that the timing couldn’t be better.

It’s official: “green” jewelry has hit the mainstream. Wal-Mart Stores announced today that it will stock a new brand of sustainable jewelry that will be tracked from mine to market. The new exclusive Love, Earth brand, which includes a $69 sterling silver necklace and $48 hoop earrings, will be sold in Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and online. A customer who buys the jewelry can visit www.loveearthinfo.com to see where their particular piece of jewelry was mined and learn about the suppliers’ environmental programs. To make this program a reality, Wal-Mart is working with United States metal mines: a first. Previous environmental brands have used recycled precious metals. The project partners include global mining giant Rio Tinto, Newmont Mining Corporation, and Aurafin, a jewelry distributor that is part of the Richline Group. The project will initially focus on gold and silver jewelry using metal from Rio Tinto’s Kennecott Utah Copper Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah, the largest man-made excavation in the world. Every year, in addition to 300,000 tons of copper, Kennecott produces 500,000 ounces of gold and 4 million ounces of silver. Newmont will provide gold from its Nevada mines. The retailer says it plans to add diamond jewelry to the project, no doubt through Rio Tinto’s diamond mining operations. Wal-Mart says its goal is to eventually have all its jewelry meet sustainability and environmental standards, starting with 10 percent of all jewelry by 2010. Although this is the first large project of its kind, consider the gauntlet thrown. With the world’s largest jewelry retailer now pressuring all suppliers for details on standards and sourcing, other retailers will be sure to follow.

Maybe “luxury” and “MySpace” aren’t oxymorons after all. Cartier just launched an extensive global advertising campaign in eight languages on MySpace. True, the Cartier profile is a bit more sophisticated than most on the largest online repository of tacky wallpaper. And it also offers something for people who aren’t in the market for jewelry: free downloads of songs from international artists like Lou Reed and Marion Cotillard rather than a garage band on a special minisite. As Advertising Age points out in its article MySpace Signs Up Glam New Member Cartier, 40 percent of MySpace members are in other countries. The social networking site is a remarkably effective way to reach a global audience at a relatively low cost (especially now that the dollar is so weak). Cartier is probably paying about $5 per thousand. Yes, but are those MySpace thousands really an audience of potential jewelry buyers? “There’s this misperception in the market about MySpace being a youth site, a site for teens,” Travis Katz, managing director-international operations for MySpace told Advertising Age. “But 85% of our audience in the U.S. is over 18, and 40% of all moms in U.S. are on MySpace.” He claims that MySpace reaches more people making $100,000-plus than arch nemesis Facebook. If this works out for Cartier, look for other jewelry companies with global ambitions, particularly bridal brands, to follow suit.

Jewelry and Hollywood are made for each other. So to coincide with its exhibit of Wiener Werkstatte jewelry, The Neue Galerie on Fifth Avenue in New York is hosting a free “Jewelry on Screen” film festival. Although a the festival is half over, a lot of good movies are coming up in the next few weeks. Any jewelry film festival is definitely required to show “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” See it again on May 23 and 30. Although Audrey Hepburn claims in the film that it’s tacky to wear diamonds if you’re under 40, she does show how to wear a fashionably long strand of pearls. In “Topkapi,” from 1964, Melina Mercouri covets the emerald dagger from the palace in Istanbul, which has one of the world’s most amazing collections of jewels. You can follow the caper on June 6 or 13. “The Affair of the Necklace,” a 2001 movie starring Hilary Swank playing on June 20 and 27, follows the intrigue surrounding the lavish 647 diamond necklace of Marie Antoinette that helped spark the French revolution.

What movies would you add to create the ultimate jewelry film festival? “To Catch a Thief” with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly is a definite yes. “Romancing the Stone”? “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”? “Titanic”? Pretty obvious. Let me also nominate Sidney Lumet’s “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” about two brothers who rob their parent’s jewelry store. While short on glamour, it’s an actor’s showcase for stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke. And, yes, the festival would have to include “Blood Diamond” too, don’t you think?

Like this year’s Spectrum Awards, the first do-it-yourself design competition, this year all the entries for the 2008 Couture Design Awards are available to view online at www.couturedesignawards.com. You can see the designs and vote in the “primaries” to select which designs will be nominated for the awards, which will be put to a vote at the show this year. The designs entered in the competition are an express-lane preview of the new styles that will be launched at Couture.

So what can we expect to see more of at Couture this year? Yellow gold dominates. There are a lot of great cuffs on display, from Armenta, Gurhan, Diana Heiman, Annie Fenterstock, Todd Reed, Sazingg, Fern Freeman, Konstantino, Jarretiere, and many more.

There are eleven categories in the Couture Awards, although a few don’t have many styles in competition. The most competitive categories are Gold and Haute Couture, which has some incredible pieces. The strength of the entries in the Newcomers category, open only to new exhibitors at Couture 2008, shows the strength of the show in continuing to attract interesting designers.

Who will win? Well, that’s for you to decide!

The philosophy of the turn of the twentieth century Arts and Crafts movement feels relevant again today: that design and craftsmanship make jewelry exceptional rather than the value of the metal and gems.

From 1903 to the early 1920s, the Wiener Werkstätte firm in Vienna created masterpieces of art jewelry. The firm, whose name means Vienna Workshops, subscribed to the Arts and Crafts ideal of well-made objects designed by artists and made by skilled craftsmen.

The first exhibition devoted to Wiener Werkstätte Jewelry, now open at the Neue Galerie on Fifth Avenue in New York, includes 40 pieces, many made by Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser, founders of the firm.  Hoffmann’s brooches, square grids filled with colorful cabochon gemstones like the one shown below, are a particular delight. Wiener Werkstätte Jewelry is open until June 30, 2008.  By happy coincidence, the Neue Galerie is also hosting a show of Gustav Klimt paintings and drawings: Klimt was a collector of Wiener Werkstatte Jewelry too.

While reflecting turn of the century philosophy, the jewelry also has resonance for designers today, who are using more unusual material like agates and what used to be called “semi-precious” and ornamental gemstones.  Hoffmann’s rigorous geometry, hammered textures, and the nature-inspired leaves and branches of the moonstone bracelet by Carl Otto Czeschka below, wouldn’t be out of place at a booth at the Couture show today.

In a recent formal presentation in London, De Beers announced that it plans to build the Forevermark, the source-assurance program of diamonds inscribed with an icon and a unique identity number, into a global diamond brand.

“The Forevermark team has a clear vision. Working in partnership with the world’s leading diamond jewelry retailers, Forevermark will be established as one of the world’s leading diamond brands, inspiring, exciting and re-assuring diamond consumers of all ages,” says De Beers managing director Gareth Penny.

It’s no big surprise: the company has been testing the marketing program for four years and the inscribed diamonds are already available in China, Hong Kong, India and Japan. DTC sightholders supply the inscribed diamonds, which are individually tracked through the pipeline, to retailers in those markets. At Basel this year, sightholders demonstrated their commitment to the brand: Rosy Blue had a record-breaking 42-carat Forevermark fancy yellow diamond, shown below, and Pluczenik had a pair of matching 26-carat Forevermark round brilliants. According to the De Beers announcement, the Forevermark program will now also be available for diamonds from “responsible sources other than the DTC.”

Current plans are to formally relaunch the Forevermark brand in Hong Kong, China, and Macau in late 2008; Japan in early 2009; and Taiwan, India and South Africa in mid-2009. Although Forevermark diamonds have been available and advertised in pilot projects in most of those countries already, the brand will now be formally launched.

One change from the pilot projects is that Forevermark diamonds will now come with a grading report issued by De Beers.

“One of the key learnings from the pilots was that we believe with Forevermark we have the potential to create the world’s leading diamond brand,” says Lynette Gould, manager: media relations for De Beers Public & Corporate Affairs.  Gould confirmed that the reports will be standard grading reports with information on the 4Cs.

“Through the pilots we have seen high levels of consumer acceptance and interest in a branded diamond proposition.”

Previously announced plans to launch a pilot project in the Gulf in 2008 are on hold while the brand is established in Asia, Gould says. And the United States market? “While we believe the Forevermark could have the potential to be a worldwide brand, our focus is clearly on making it a success in Asia first,” Gould says.

The DTC finally announced its official list of DTC Sightholders for the 2008-2011 contract period. The complete Sightholder Directory is now available online. Despite the delay in announcing the list there are no big surprises. Modern Jeweler did miss two international sightholders in our March 2008 Global Diamond Directory: Diamanthandel A. Spira, the oldest sightholder, and Vijaydimon, who we listed as a Rio Tinto Select Diamantaire but who is also a DTC sightholder. As you might expect, we also included two companies in error: A.S. Exports (an expected new sightholder) and Bornstein. Apologies to the companies involved and to our readers for the incorrect information, which was our mistake entirely.

But what is most interesting about the new online DTC sightholder directory is the detailed information it provides about Sightholders in South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia, which will no doubt help jewelers and manufacturers who wish to support beneficiation in those countries. This is more information than has ever been available before about these companies and their operations, although most of them are part of bigger international Sightholder groups. And it is all accessible to consumers too: an important milestone in the progress the industry is making to bring diamond cutting and downstream employment to diamond producing countries in Africa.

One of the most entertaining parts of the Oscars tradition is the variety of “winners” and “losers” lists that come out after the event. It’s gone beyond the awarding of best picture, best actress, and so on, to best and worst dressed, best and worst jewelry, best and worst hair, best and worst couple, and on and on. At Oscars 2008, perhaps no one exemplified winning and losing more than Damiani. The Italian jeweler dressed Tilda Swinton, and received lots of publicity for its jewelry on the best supporting actress Oscar winner. (Another story entirely is Swinton’s baggy black dress, which looked like a leftover costume/cloak from the “Chronicles of Narnia,” and received a lot of worst dressed honors, which of course is still plenty of priceless publicity.)

But straight out of a Hollywood film, Damiani then made headlines around the world when, almost simultaneously, its Milan, Italy showroom was robbed of millions in jewelry. The thieves pulled off the dramatic heist in part by digging a tunnel from a building next door. Trying to put the best spin on the situation, Damiani released a statement supporting its victimized employees, saying that at least most of their “Masterpiece” collection was in LA at the Oscars. Thankfully no one was hurt. Nonetheless, it was surely much more publicity, and drama, than Damiani ever bargained for this Oscar season. - Matthew Kramer

It wasn’t as strong as the tide of red dresses. But there was an undeniable trend of long necklaces at this year’s Academy Awards. After years dominated by important earrings and bold bracelets, the decision by style icons like Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett, Best Actress Marion Cotillard, nominees Ellen Page and Laura Linney, and presenters Jennifer Garner and Keri Russell to choose an important necklace instead was a major shift in direction from years past.

Kidman wore the most important and prominent necklace of the night: an extraordinary rough and polished multistrand diamond sautoir designed by L’Wren Scott set with 7645 diamonds totaling almost 1400 carats. Russel’s multistrand necklace by H. Stern was also a very strong look.