Modern Jewelry Trends

World Trade Jewelers is launching a new jewelry collection licensed by Hershey’s, the venerable chocolate brand.  The star of the collection is a diamond pave “Kiss” pendant. Hershey’s Kiss Jewelry will be available in diamonds and white gold in a variety of sizes. Retail price points range from $499 to $7,999. It’s pretty clear that this idea will be a winner.  How can you go wrong combining chocolate with love?  Your first kiss will be waiting at the JCK show, booth 7117.

Angels & Demons, the long-awaited follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, premiered on Monday in Rome. The premiere was just a stone’s throw from the Vatican, creating a bit of controversy since Ron Howard, the director, has been widely quoted saying the Vatican had made it difficult to get permits to film in some locations. The jewelry in the film has religious overtones as well, including rosaries and crosses that were created specifically for the film by Italian jewelry brand Damiani. Silvia Damiani says she drew inspiration from the mystery and emotions that surround the story, and worked with costume designer Daniel Orlandi to research traditional symbols in historical documents. Although the pieces were made specifically for the film, Damiani has also drawn inspiration from the movie to create the new “Angeli & Demoni” collection of crosses, necklaces, and rosary beads in yellow and rose gold with onyx or enamel. Also seen on screen in the movie are a Damiani pendant from Damianissima, which combines the D of the Damiani name in an beautiful repetitive pattern in rose, yellow and white gold with diamonds; and cufflinks from D.Side, co-designed by Damiani and Brad Pitt.

Rare diamond colors are nothing usual for fancy color specialist L.J. West.  The company is known for its pinks, blues and greens, which command well-deserved premium prices.  But a new ring from the company, dubbed the “Argyle Red Romance,” is completely unprecedented.  The platinum ring features three matching fancy purplish red diamonds.  The center stone is 1.90 carats and the two side stones are 0.54 carats and 0.49 carats.  To put this into context, the annual Argyle tender, the source of the world’s most fabulous pinks, set a record in 2007 by offering five reds. How much does such rarity command? One red diamond of less than a carat sold at auction for $1 million per carat. L.J West is at the JCK Show in booth 8120.

This season’s selection of ornament-encrusted gowns present a jewelry dilemma: match your fake gems with real?  Or accessorize with something completely different?  At the recent Academy of Country Music Awards at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas Miley Cyrus tried the first option, pairing her green bejeweled dress with gemstone Harmony earrings and ring from the Diane von Furstenberg by H. Stern collection. Generally, wearing anything from H.Stern is a guarantee of red-carpet success. But this combination is a bit risky.  I can’t help wishing that the dress was without ornamentation. What do you think? Are the earrings fighting the dress?  Who’s winning?  (Surely not Cyrus.)

As we lead up to the launch of the new collections in Vegas at the end of this month, I’m going to be previewing some of the great new styles you can expect to see at the shows. First up is beautiful collection by a new designer from Australia, Katherine Jetter, who will exhibit in the U.S. for the first time this year at Couture.  As you might expect from an Australian designer, Jetter has an eye for opal, using it extensively in her designs, like the spectacular Poison Berry Ring above, which has carved opal petals around a 4.30-carat rubellite, with 2.80-carats of diamond micropave and tsavorite twisting around the finger. The suggested retail is $14,000. But Jetter’s inspiration is also derived from nature in general and her collection includes lots of leafy motifs, like the Lady of the Daintree Fern Bracelet, below, which has tsavorite pave in sterling silver with blue opal water droplets and red berry garnets decorating the foliage. The suggested retail for the bracelet is $6,600. The collection includes some sterling silver styles that retail under $300 too and everything has a pop of color that makes it interesting.  I’m looking forward to seeing the whole collection at Couture.