Modern Jewelry Trends

With Blood Diamond opening next week, the entire weight of the entertainment industry seems focused on examining how ethical the diamond industry is. But the same pressure from consumers for corporate responsibility applies to the movie business too. The Times in London recently published an article on the ethical practices of Hollywood, including Blood Diamond, called How Ethical Is This Movie? “The movie, set within Africa’s illicit ‘conflict diamond’ trade, has become involved in a very public debate about the nature of ethical film-making. Here, thanks to a scurrilously leaked, or concocted, media report about the movie’s allegedly cavalier attitude towards its African extras, the film-makers have been forced to highlight the existence of their own philanthropic Blood Diamond Fund. On top of the $40 million that the movie has pumped directly into the local Mozambique economy the fund has already raised an undisclosed six-figure sum for charitable works in the area,” the article says. The “allegedly cavalier attitude” comment refers to the report (denied by the filmmakers) that the filmmakers didn’t deliver on promised prosthetics for the amputee children who appear in the film. Gossip columnists also seized on the loss of a hand by one of the South African special effects technicians during his work on the film. The Times article notes some highlights of “Hollywood’s dirty history.” The Beach bulldozed Phi Phi Lay island in Thailand to create its set, Lord of War basically really did run guns, and the classic The African Queen’s director John Huston shot elephants while on set in the Republic of Congo.

One of the best ways to build a profitable online jewelry business is to specialize. You would be surprised how many people you can reach, even in a tiny product category. In the New York Times this morning, I was inspired to find a small ad for a Scarsdale, New York jeweler. The Village Goldsmith has decided to reach out to a wider market by specializing in dog-themed jewelry. This store is offering jewelry with hundreds of different dog varieties. (This is a growing trend: see Modern Jeweler’s Best of Breed fashion spread in the November/December 2006 issue. Pet-themed jewelry is also scheduled for a feature on the Today show on Monday, December 4.)
The Village Goldsmith’s site is pretty rudimentary but it gets the job done. And the Village Goldsmith isn’t the only one mining jewelry niches. Cliptomania sells non-pierced earrings. Another jeweler I know sells high-end medical jewelry. The idea is to go deep and narrow: although this kind of niche is difficult or impossible in a brick-and-mortar store, the web brings you a national (and sometimes even international) audience, so even if a half-a-percent of consumers would be interested in your product, it adds up to a nice potential business. So if you want to launch an online store and don’t want to invest the money to compete with Blue Nile, Tiffany, QVC, and jewelry.com, consider carrying something they don’t.

This morning, the Today show took a look at a diamond’s journey from mine to market, tracing the pipeline from Jwaneng mine in Botswana (probably footage left over from Matt Lauer’s visit there a few years ago) to sorting at the DTC in London to cutting on 47th Street in New York. Although conflict diamonds are mentioned, they are mentioned in context. The piece says that diamonds should “bear a certificate that shows where they come from.” Neither the upcoming movie or the Kimberly process are mentioned. The obligatory happy couple is thrilled that their diamond takes a year to move from mine to market and is touched by so many people. A story on Blood Diamond this morning in Newsday newspaper in New York? Less positive: “The memory may be a decade old, but the hunk of glistening carbon on your finger reminds you, whenever it catches your eye, of that giddy little scene: the velvet box, the few portentous words. Would it taint the romance of the stone to think that a slave under the eye of an 11-year-old armed with an AK-47 might have scooped it out of the fetid black mud of Western Africa? That he might have handed it to overseers who exerted their control by hacking off miners’ limbs with machetes? Or that a smuggler might have slipped it into a condom and then swallowed it, only to be disemboweled by a rebel soldier determined to retrieve it?” Charming. Expect more of this each day, as we count down to the opening of Blood Diamond on December 8. One interesting event scheduled is a press conference on December 5 with Russell Simmons and Kimora Lee Simmons, co-owners of Simmons Jewelry Company (and not-so-happy couple) who will have just returned from a nine-day journey to South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique. Simmons will announce “major historic initiatives pertaining to Africa and the diamond industry by the Simmons Jewelry Company.”

Just in time for the holidays, a new exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History celebrates our long love affair with the shiny yellow metal. The blockbuster exhibit Gold is especially strong on gold’s geological occurrences. Case after case of nuggets, crystalline gold, and fantastical naturally occurring shapes really demonstrate how this love affair got started. No one who came across one of these gleaming miracles of nature could help but treasure it. The exhibit also has impressively displayed gold bars and coins, including some sunken treasure. And the examples of pre-Columbian gold artifacts from Panama are particularly nice. All told there is a ton of gold on display: none as impressively as three ounces that are pounded into gold leaf that covers the walls and ceilings of a 144 sq. ft. room. But the exhibition is a little disappointing when it comes to modern-day artistry in gold. The gold jewelry on display is limited to a few pieces. For more modern gold, you have to go to the gift shop, which has some nice gold souvenirs. Styles available include hammered designs by Toby Pomeroy, LiveWire hoops by Dana*David, high-karat styles by Yossi Harari, charms by Tracey Zabar, and a selection of vermeil looks. The exhibit runs until August 19, 2007.

Consumers looking for information on platinum often visit two consumer sites sponsored by Platinum Guild International USA, www.preciousplatinum.com and www.engagementguide.com. Now those consumers will be able to find platinum retailers as well as learn about the heavy white metal. The stores listed in the new Find a Retailer section “not only offer a wide selection of platinum jewelry but also have a strong educated sales staff that will provide a great shopping experience.” Think you qualify? To be listed, contact Michelle Peranteau at (212) 404-1603 or mperanteau@pgiglobal.com.

Joining “Black Friday” in the list of shopping occasions is “Cyber Monday,” the November 27 kickoff to the online holiday shopping season and one of the biggest online shopping days of the year. (Last year only December 12, the last day for free shipping was bigger.) But there’s one big difference: Cyber Monday isn’t exactly a holiday so most shoppers are actually at “work.” Of course, we all know we only shop during lunch, right? “Online retailers typically see huge surges in website traffic during traditional lunch hours,” said Scott Silverman, Executive Director of Shop.org. “Shopping at work can be a great way for many consumers to complete holiday buying without having to worry about sneaky gift recipients looking over their shoulders.” (As far as sneaky bosses are concerned, you are on your own.) Cyber Monday sales will likely be even bigger this year as retailers launch special lunch hour promotions and discounts to turn browsers into buyers. The number of people who will shop online for holiday gifts from work is expected to surge to 61.0 million people this year, up from 51.7 million people last year, according to a recent Shop.org survey conducted by BIGresearch. In fact, 51% of consumers with Internet access at work plan to do some holiday shopping online from the office, up from 44.7 percent last year. To make it easier for shoppers to cram their entire Christmas list into one lunch-hour session, Shop.org has created CyberMonday.com. At this site, which launches today, nearly 400 online retailers will be posting holiday promotions. (Basically the site is a huge array of banner ads.) When shoppers make a purchase through CyberMonday.com, retailers will donate a percentage of that sale to Shop.org’s Ray M. Greenly Scholarship Fund, which helps students pursuing careers in eCommerce. So they can learn even more efficient ways to separate you from your paycheck while you are earning it.

When a marriage or engagement falls apart, what happens to the ring? A new website hopes to turn this question into an online business model. I Do, Now I Don’t offers consumers an online auction platform for engagement rings. How is this different from eBay? The site is pretty primitive in design and functionality but it has some advantages. First, there are no listing fees. Also, the site accepts only rings with AGS, GIA or EGL reports for the diamond. And before the sale is completed, the site’s “in-house jeweler” will verify that the ring is as represented in the report or the deal is off. For that service, the seller pays a 5% commission. (Which makes it about the same price as eBay. It would be $311.53 to list the $6,499 radiant cut ring now offered on I Do Now I Don’t with all the bells & whistles and sell it with a Pay Pal payment on eBay: that’s 4.79%. The tradeoff is that eBay has a much larger audience but it does not check the merchandise for misrepresentation, although purchasers can use seller feedback for references.) This site is billed as the brainchild of a jilted man who was appalled that the jeweler who sold him an expensive ring three months before offered only 32% of the offering price to buy it back. Doesn’t ring true to me though: seems like a clever retailer is testing an interesting niche market. I’m not sure that this it will appeal to consumers even if it does get some media attention, though. Although the broken engagement stories are a new twist, do people really want a ring with bad karma? A much better solution to the problem is buying from a jeweler with a lifetime trade-in policy.

A recent Jewelry Consumer Opinion Council study of 3,553 consumers showed that women today are very comfortable buying diamond jewelry for themselves. Of those surveyed, 83% own diamond jewelry. The highest percentage, 68%, bought diamonds for themselves. Receiving diamonds for bridal, Christmas/holiday, and birthday occasions was less common. “But jewelers—particularly national and regional chain stores and independents, where half of diamond purchases are expected to occur in the coming months—place a greater emphasis on gifts of love than the self purchases that consumers repeatedly say they’re willing to make,” says Elizabeth Chatelain, president of MVI Marketing. With the holiday season upon us, 16% of the consumers say they plan to buy diamond jewelry in the coming months, with well over half intending to keep it, not give it. The most popular price range for diamond jewelry other than bridal is between $300 and $2,500. The most frequently coveted styles are right-hand rings, followed by stud earrings.

In addition to the Blood Diamond movie website, there is now a Blood Diamond Action website which, as you might expect, focuses on the issue of conflict diamonds. The site offers links to Global Witness, Amnesty International, Partnership Africa Canada, the Kimberley Process, and the World Diamond Council (although not Diamondfacts.org.) It offers visitors links to donate funds to Global Witness and Amnesty “to raise awareness and prevent diamonds from fuelling conflict, human rights abuses and terrorism.” In fact, the website is sponsored by those two organizations (in addition to the movie) which is why it has the non-profit “.org” address. (And, just in case all the downloadable reports on the flaws in the Kimberley Process are a little too serious for you, you can watch the movie trailer too.) The site advises consumers to ask to see a retailer’s written policy on conflict diamonds and actual warrantees from suppliers. There will probably be an increase in questions like this during the next month. Is your store ready? During Amnesty International’s 2004 survey of 246 retail stores on the issue,only 27% of shops said that they had a policy on conflict diamonds and even 30% of those shops were unable to produce a hard copy or explain it. Hopefully, matters have improved immensely since then. But make sure that everyone on your staff can answer questions on the topic. If you are not sure, there are some handy training materials at Diamondfacts.org.

Eighties glam resurfaced this week at Bebe’s Spring 2007 runway show at Los Angeles Fashion Week. Visors, aviator shades and lots of gold jewelry put the final touches on the black and white tailored looks of the collection. Important jewelry looks, coordinated by World Gold Council and styles by Paula Bradley and Matt Goldman, include large gold hoops, large link chain necklaces, and bangle bracelets. Below, from left, 18k gold lantern earring by Vicente Agor and 18K gold bridge necklace by La Pepita for Gold Expressions; 18K gold and diamond necklace by Mattioli (dig that visor!); and 22K gold Loft necklace by Karen Mitchell and 18K gold hoops by Charles Garnier.