Modern Jewelry Trends

Pearl farmers live in some of the world’s most beautiful places: sheltered lagoons with pristine clean waters and some of the world’s highest biodiversity. But this closeness to nature also means that they are also one of the most vulnerable industries to climate change. At this year’s GIA Gemfest in Basel, which featured leading pearl producers from all over the world, the topic of the threat of global warming to the quantity and quality of pearl production was one of the interesting topics raised. I talked to Jacques Branellec of Jewelmer, the leading producer of South Sea cultured pearls in the Philippines, and Martin Coeroli, the managing director of Perles de Tahiti, about climate change and the possible impact on pearls. As you can see in my video on Pearls and Global Warming, South Sea pearls and Tahitian pearls may be even rarer in the years to come. The threat is most acute in the tropical producing regions near the equator, where even a one or two degree rise in sea temperature can result in oyster mortality. Typhoons, always a threat to pearl farms, may cause additional damage. It really brings home how pearl farming is an amazing organic industry: a clean and sustainable source of employment in some of the world’s most beautiful places that actually improves the habitat for marine life in the surrounding areas.

With wheel barrels of diamond and gemstone jewelry in Cannes during the festival from official jeweler Chopard, de Grisogono, and others, there is no shortage of glamorous necklaces available for celebrities to wear. But the stars are sticking to the dress for red carpet success recipe that began at the Oscars: bracelets and dangling earrings or hoops. Necks, once again, are mostly bare. Sharon Stone managed to look chic, relaxed, and almost casual in gold lame at the amFar Cinema Against AIDS benefit thanks to her H. Stern hoop earrings and Diane Von Furstenberg Sutra bracelet. Although neutral colors, the strongest trend from awards season, are still strong, some stars have broken out bright colors to stunning effect, notably Angelina Jolie and Helen Mirren in sunshine yellow and Kerry Washington in emerald green. Washington bucked the trend in another way: she also wore a dramatic matching emerald necklace by Boucheron.

The better your internet connection, the more the internet influences what you buy. In a new study by Media-Screen, 50% of consumers with fast connections said that the internet had influenced a recent purchase: 36% cited shopping sites and 15% search engines. That compares to only 11% who said television commercials influenced a recent purchase. Magazine ads were even lower at 6%. The survey, called Netpop | Shop, tracks the purchasing behavior of 1,397 U.S. broadband users 13 years and older. Of course, you have to take these numbers with a teaspoon or two of salt. This is user-reported data, after all, and we feel smarter when we say we research purchases online than when we say we are TV zombies who buy what commercials tell us to buy. But still, the numbers are pretty convincing. For people who care enough about the internet to get a broadband connection, the influence of the internet is rapidly overtaking advertising in traditional media. For these users, the internet is changing word-of-mouth recommendations too. An additional 9% of these consumers said their purchases were influenced by things other people said online in user-generated content such as consumer reviews and blogs. Shoppers spend an average 3.8 hours researching online purchases. Yet another reason why your store needs to have a helpful, information rich website, even if you don’t sell online.

For those of you who follow the wisdom of Warren, his latest move suggests that jewelry middlemen may not be obsolete after all. Berkshire Hathaway has announced plans to buy two of the industry’s largest gold importers and distributors, Bel-Oro International and Aurafin, merging them to create the largest jewelry distribution company in the country. The new uber-distributor will be called The Richline Group. Leaving aside QVC, the largest single customer for Italian gold in the US, the two companies probably handle the majority of gold jewelry imports and distribution in the country. Bel-Oro, in particular, has been in the news lately thanks to its Gold Expressions marketing partnership with the World Gold Council that has made it the category’s largest marketer. Bel-Oro’s president Dennis Ulrich will be the chief executive officer of the combined company and Aurafin CEO Dave Meleski will be the president. Berkshire Hathaway is no stranger to the jewelry industry, of course: it owns Ben Bridge Jewelers, Borsheims Fine Jewelry, and Helzberg Diamonds. But up to this point, its jewelry interests have all been in the retail arena. That’s not surprising, since most of the profits in the business have been in mining or retailing, and nothing in between. Aside from a few very successful brands, jewelry manufacturers and wholesalers have seen declining margins and increased financing costs. So why acquire two large companies who primarily supply the majors and are known more as importers than manufacturers? To create a supplier with the financial resources to successfully deal with large retail customers? To vertically integrate? To provide a large parent company that can acquire brands or troubled manufacturers in Italy and elsewhere, and more effectively market their products? To add other kinds of jewelry products to the combined company’s offerings and become the industry’s super supplier? Stay tuned. The middle just got a lot more interesting.

With everyone working their way through a Netflix queue, perhaps it’s not surprising that consumers are now also opting for online borrowing of other consumer items. Although you can borrow clothes and shoes, as you might expect, handbags are the most popular rental item. (No someone-else-sweat-in-these-shoes issues.) Bag Borrow or Steal, the leading online fashion rental brand, has hot designer handbags for about $270 a month. But Bag Borrow or Steal also has designer fine jewelry available for loan, including brands like Chanel, Charriol, Stephen Dweck, Scott Kay, Vera Wang, and Rosiblu. So what does it cost to be Cinderella for a week? For members, an 18k link necklace by Faraone Mennella is $195 per week or two-inch gold hoops studded with citrines by Simon Alcantara are $70 a week. Two carat total weight diamond studs from Rosiblu are $305 a week, $845 a month. (Surprisingly, 3-carat diamond chandeliers by Vera Wang are the same price.) You don’t have to join (membership can be only $5/month if you sign up for six months) but you get lower prices and can sign up on wait lists for popular pieces if you do. I can see brides renting jewelry for their wedding day. For the groom, Watch My Wrist, a site that offers watch rentals, isn’t quite as enticing. Despite the fact that Watch My Wrist was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal recently, the site design doesn’t inspire confidence, with amateur graphics and misspellings. The price of temporary time? A Rolex Submariner is $240 a week, a Baume Mercier Hampton Chronograph is $99 a week, or a Chopard Happy Snowflakes watch is $187 a week. On rental sites, you could pretty quickly rack up charges that equal the sales price of any item, so this option is probably better for people who are willing to pay to wear or carry something different each month. This is a little easier to take with fashion items that might be out of style by then anyway. This is especially true on borrowedbling.com, a costume jewelry site where the “diamond crystal” pieces are basically only worth the rental fee. But I’m surprised that there isn’t an online rental service that specializes in brides, with tiaras and fantastic jewelry for her special day. It would give “something borrowed” a whole new ring. Until then, consider having a real tiara on hand for loans to deepen your relationship with couples who buy engagement and wedding rings in your store. It could be a centerpiece for your bridal events too.

It’s time once again for the Spectrum Awards, the top annual design competition for colored gemstone and pearl jewelry sponsored by the American Gem Trade Association. All jewelry designers and lapidary artists from the United States and Canada are invited to enter finished colored gemstone and pearl jewelry produced after October 2006. The competition also includes a category for gemstone cutting, known as the Cutting Edge Awards. The best thing about the Spectrum Awards competition is that winners are often previously unknown designers. I’d say half the winners each year are retailers so the competition really celebrates all the great custom retail jewelers out there. If you have a beautiful piece of gemstone jewelry you’ve designed, with high-quality well-cut gemstones used in an innovative way, you really do have a shot. Are you psyched? You have four months to execute your colorful vision: the AGTA is accepting entries until September 25, 2007. Entry forms can be found online. Winning pieces get a lot of publicity: in fact, for the last ten years we’ve featured a winning piece on the cover of the February issue of Modern Jeweler. We generally run pictures of all the winners (because Modern Jeweler’s managing editor Matt Kramer loves the Spectrum Awards and can’t bear to leave anyone out.) The AGTA also shows off the winners at trade shows and a media event for magazine editors, fashion stylists, producers, and costume designers. So start designing! For inspiration, here are two 2007 winners, a brooch by Jennifer Rabe Morin of Santa Barbara, above, and a necklace by Robert Wander of Winc Creations of Honolulu, below.

Now that warm weather is here again, women wearing sundresses will suffer from the dreaded exposed bra strap syndrome. Margarita Couture has dedicated itself to solving this problem with decorative straps, including new straps adorned with freshwater pearls that are like pearl necklaces for your shoulders. Elite Pearl Straps retail for $35 a pair. The adjustable straps can be worn with any convertible bra (although the company recommends its Evolution by Margarita bra, a $44 five-in one push-up number.) Designer Margarita Reis, who invented the decorative bra strap in 2001, said the pearl straps were perfect for brides to wear with a wedding dress. The company has been test marketing the straps to shoppers at the four Margarita Couture kiosks in malls in Florida. Reis said that exposed straps can be tacky or fashionable, depending on the strap and the outfit, but that “standard white bra straps never look good because they aren’t designed to show.” Glad we cleared that up.

The theme of this year’s AGS Conclave in Denver last week was Take the Vow and many sessions did address today’s bride. But the unofficial theme of conclave was growing power and influence of today’s female consumer and how the jewelry industry has to change to better attract and serve women. Women make or influence 80 percent of all consumer purchase decisions, that’s $5 trillion in consumer spending each year. But marketing to women isn’t a matter of making your store pink. Conclave speaker Andrea Learned, author of Don’t Think Pink, urges retailers to go beyond stereotypes to better attract and serve all customers. She advises creating a customer advisory board of ten or so of your top customers to advise you on how better to serve them and to use the power of stories to forge an emotional bond. But don’t take our word for it: listen to Andrea tell you all about it in our new video of her three secrets of Marketing to Women (just one of the cool interviews in our new Jewelry Video Network.) It’s important to remember that this isn’t about trading one customer base for another. Since women are informed shoppers who notice everything, from your social responsibility policy, the shopping experience, your store design, your staff, your website, doing a better job at marketing to women will help make your store more attractive to men too.