Modern Jewelry Trends

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 Federal Trade Commission just published a consumer alert on what to look for when purchasing jewelry. And it’s actually titled Puttin’ on the Glitz: What to Know When Shopping for Jewelry. Despite good intentions, the impact of these kinds of warnings are always somewhat negative in that they give the impression that jewelers are generally less than trustworthy. But this alert is even worse than most in that it doesn’t get the facts quite right.

Fortunately, an early gaffe about diamond weight being measured in “karats” has been corrected. But the pearl section is also a bit odd. It says that pearls can be “imitation, cultured or real.” Why they decided to use the word “real” instead of natural is a mystery but it might lead some consumers to conclude that cultured pearls aren’t real. The section on gold karatage is confusing too. In avoiding the use of percentages, they end up not explaining how karatage works or the difference between 18k and 14k.

And is it me or does the gemstone paragraph seem to be promoting lab-grown stones? Judge for yourself: “There’s a difference between laboratory-created gemstones and natural stones. Stones created in the lab are practically identical (visually, physically, and chemically) to stones mined from the earth. The big difference is in the cost: laboratory-created stones are less expensive than mined stones. Because they look just like natural stones, they must be identified as lab-created.” (Uh, yeah, the big difference couldn’t be that one is manufactured in any quantity and the other is occasionally found in the ground.)

One might ask where is the section on fake discounting? Where is the section on getting a laboratory report if you are buying diamonds online? Where is the section that warns consumers about all the counterfeits on eBay?

All in all, I think ethical jewelers can say, thanks but no thanks.

If the first reports trickling in on holiday sales are accurate, the National Retail Federation’s estimate of 4 percent sales growth for the holiday season, the lowest since 2001, may have been too optimistic. The day after Christmas, some reports were that sales were flat. ShopperTrak and MasterCard Advisors have said that overall sales were up 3.6 percent, but excluding gas and auto purchases left a measly increase of only 2.4 percent. The International Council of Shopping Centers said Wednesday that same-store sales during the holidays would be “just below” projections for a 2.5 percent gain, although post-Christmas sales could erase that shortfall. Online sales, although still growing far faster than sales at stores, grew a bit less this year, up an estimated 19 percent this year to $26 billion. Online jewelry and watch sales, which grew a torrid 66 percent last year, may even have been down slightly this year, according to comScore.

In the grand tradition of our Million Dollar Bling video, today we celebrate the year’s top ten over-the-top diamond-encrusted objets. Extra points for functioning electronics, of course. (Planned Obsolescence + Forever = Cognitive Dissonance.) No diamond-covered phones or diamond pave USB drives allowed because they’re just too common these days.

10. Philips Diamond-Set Television Set: Yes, those are 2,250 diamonds on a TV! This is the winner in the sightholder category this year, despite stiff competition from a diamond ice cream cone, a diamond dress, and a diamond steering wheel, although it can’t compare to the diamond lost in a crash of a race car last year. This, no doubt, is exactly what De Beers had in mind when they developed Supplier of Choice.

9. Million Dollar Laptop by Luvaglio: You can’t show a million dollar laptop to just anyone, obviously, so the Luvaglio website is “by appointment only.” Sadly, I am unable to confirm that the laptop comes in pink for the ladies. But in the photo Engadget no doubt purloined, the diamonds are confined to the power button. May I suggest that this is perhaps a bit too discreet for anyone who wants a million-dollar laptop?

8. Diamond-Studded Computer Mouse: Actually the flower-pattern diamond mouse, priced at about $26,775 for “high net worth shoppers,” is pretty conservative for this company, aside from the price. Diamonds are confined to a flower pattern on the top of the old-fashioned bar of soap style mouse. Compare to the torso mouse. Or the chili pepper mouse, which is definitely my favorite.

7. 24k Gold and Diamond Widex Hearing Aid: The most unusual entry on the list is bling for the hard of hearing. I like the idea of proudly celebrating the hearing aid instead of trying to hide it but this might go a bit too far. The large diamond encrusted logo is an especially nice touch. Is that a gold and diamond banana behind your ear?

6. JooZoo Diamond-set Pet MP3 Player: What sets this apart from your dime-a-dozen diamond pave iPod shuffle players is that this diamond-covered mp3 player is designed for your dog. (That explains the amount of hair in the photo.) It’s supposed to calm your dog’s nerves to wear a gold and diamond pendant that plays music. It would make the dog more stressed out to be mugged, however, so it might be a wash.

5. Diamond and 18k Gold Gameboy: Dot matrix with stereo sound! 1989 is calling….The item points out the general problem with adorning electronics. I can imagine giving this as a gift and the recipient would think “what? why didn’t you set diamonds on a Nintendo DS or a Wii instead of this obsolete black and white fossil?” The pattern on the gold also says 1989 to me.

4. Million Dollar Lure: This one actually makes sense. Especially if you’re fishing in the fountain at The Bellagio or the canals of The Venetian.

3. Solitaire Kicks: These white and aqua patent leather Nike Air Force 1 sneakers with eight carats of champagne diamonds are priced at $50,000. I’m not sure the champagne diamonds go with the shiny aqua soles though. Apparently Big Boi of Outkast will show up if you promise to give him a pair.

2. Icepik Toothpick Sleeve: The site explains it best: “The first diamond encrusted toothpick sleeve, and we call it the Icepik. Each Icepik is hand crafted, and set in elegance beyond compare by our goldsmiths who have been in the industry for over 30 years. No Icepik will ever be the same due to this fact. All Icepiks are set on 18k gold to keep a better shine, and keep from tarnishing. You slide your average round toothpick into our patented round 18k gold cylinder, and there you have the start of a new look on life. Your wooden toothpick still sits in your mouth, but on the outside your toothpick looks like a piece of art. We suggest you get a Icepik if you are a person who likes to stand out beyond the rest.”

1. Damien Hirst’s “For the Love of God”: The world’s most expensive piece of art sold $100 million, even if he did have to buy it himself. Real teeth! Big diamonds! Bigger pretention! Because all art should aspire to a Guinness World Record.

For more diamond-covered fun, check out Wired’s Worst Diamond-Encrusted Gadgets of All Time.

Get ready for a ban on imports of Burmese gemstones. Both the House and the Senate have passed bills to close the loophole in the import ban for stones mined in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) that are cut and polished in another country.

The two bills differ, so they will have to be reconciled before being sent to President Bush for signing. He’ll no doubt do so quickly: First Lady Laura Bush has become one of the most vocal opponents of the regime in Myanmar.

The import ban will affect Burmese ruby, almost all the world’s jadeite, and some sapphire, spinel, and peridot.

On December 17, the House voted to award the Congressional Gold Medal, the United States’ highest civilian honor, to Burmese democratic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the only imprisoned recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. She has been under house arrest in Burma for 12 years. The award, which has yet to be confirmed by the Senate, is intended as a message to the Burmese junta led by General Than Shwe, who renamed the country Myanmar in 1989.

Retail sales in November were up 1.2 percent in November, according to the Commerce Department, double analysts’ estimates. The National Retail Federation says that November sales were up 5.1 percent, ahead of the NRF projected increase of 4 percent for the overall holiday season. Online shopping continues to grow dramatically: it’s up 18 percent so far. Other bright spots so are luxury, up 10.8 percent, and electronics, up 5.8 percent.

But, as you’ve no doubt heard, there are also many negative economic indicators for the holiday season. Spending on women’s apparel dropped nearly 6 percent during the first half of the Christmas season, compared with the same period last year, according to MasterCard Advisors, a division of the credit card company.

How is jewelry doing so far? According to Phil Rist of BIGresearch, 22.2 percent of consumers plan to buy jewelry this holiday season, down from 26.4 percent in 2006. There are rumors that sales at Sterling are down 7 percent so far this holiday season. The major has responded by cancelling orders around the globe, suppliers say. I can’t confirm these rumors, though: Sterling is scrupulous about never discussing sales ahead of corporate reports. A study of 2,104 people conducted by the Jewelry Consumer Opinion Council, a division of MVI Marketing Ltd., in the last week of November 2007 showed Black Friday and the Thanksgiving weekend shopping season was down by as much as 4 percent. Only 16 percent of those surveyed purchased fine jewelry or watches as a gift over the Thanksgiving weekend, down from 20 percent in a similar study conducted in 2006. Some individual high-end retailers are doing well, however. I’ve heard reports of trunk shows with customers lining up to buy.
But remember, sales of gift cards are surging and they are not counted in holiday purchases until they are spent. According to Rist, 56 percent of consumers intend to spend $26 billion in gift cards this shopping season. When added to the expected increase of 4 percent overall, the retail numbers may not be as bad as media reports would have you believe.

Jeweler Steve Quick has created the world’s most expensive Christmas tree. On display at Steve Quick Jewelers in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, the tree is made out of five solid pounds of 18k yellow gold and decorated with 250 carats of round brilliant and briolette diamonds. The platinum star on top, set with a 4.52 carat diamond, is detachable so the owner can wear it as a pendant.

Creating the tree was a lengthy process: just the wax carving, which created the needle detail, took weeks. The casting process required specialized equipment, which was purchased and specially modified for this project. The tree is made of reclaimed gold so even though it appears very yellow, it is actually quite “green”!

Suppliers Manak Jewels, United Gem Limited, Clark Jewelers, Chicago Gem Appraisers also contributed to the tree.

This “outrageous, over the top labor of love” benefits a good cause: it will be auctioned off on eBay beginning on December 17 with 100 percent of the profits going to benefit the American Cancer Society.

The tree is valued at $500,000. If that’s a bit over your holiday budget, Quick has also designed miniature versions of the Tree in sterling silver for $20, gold-plated for $25, and 14k gold for $195. All of the profits from the Mini-Trees will also be donated to the American Cancer Society.
“Our tree was created to bring hope and help to people battling cancer,” Quick says. “To us, helping others is priceless.”

To understand how the best companies train and motivate their retail sales associates, reporter Alex Frankel spent two years selling a lot of stuff in stores. He writes about his experience in a recent article Magic Shop in Fast Company and a new book, Punching In: The Unauthorized Adventures of a Front-Line Employee. Of all the retailers he worked for, Frankel was most impressed with the passion and effectiveness of sales associates at the Apple store. I’ve mentioned before the astonishing success of the Apple stores on a sales-per-square foot basis. At $4,032 per square foot overall, Apple’s chain of 174 stores outperforms even Tiffany & Co., which has sales of $2,666 per square foot. (And the flagship glass cube on Fifth Avenue does much, much more.) Lustre magazine recently just surveyed top independent luxury jewelers for Buying Luxury, a best practices story in the September/October 2007 issue, and their sales per square foot ranged from $2,000 to $3,000.

Can jewelry retailers learn anything from Apple’s sales practices? Of course, Apple has more than its share of brand evangelists it can hire to spread the gospel of Mac. And it’s easier to sell when your store is always packed: Apple stores are destinations and people hang out in the stores for hours on end, surfing the web and checking email.
But Frankel found that the success of Apple sales associates also has a lot to do with training: “A series of podcasts I listened to and watched showed that selling was all about the approach. I shadowed other workers as they executed the company’s three-step sales process. They explained to customers that they had some questions to understand their needs, got permission to fire away, and then kept digging to ascertain which products would be best. Position, permission, probe.”

As Frankel points out, this approach to selling positions employees as consultants rather than salesmen and changes their attitude: “At an Apple Store, workers don’t seem to be selling (or working) too hard, just hanging out and dispensing information. And that moves a ridiculous amount of goods. When employees become sharers of information, instead of sellers of products, customers respond.” Jewelry, like computers, is an industry that can be intimidating to the first-time buyer. An approach like Apple’s, low on pressure and high on information, might prove just as effective for jewelry too.

To make their proposal even more memorable, many would-be grooms are making the bended-knee question a private moment between two people and their photographer. In today’s New York Times, the article Will You Marry Me? Say Cheese! tracks a new trend: hiring a photographer to take a picture of the proposal. Obviously, proposal paparazzi aren’t for everyone. But public posting of private moments is more common in the age of social networking sites and instant messaging. Many people’s lives today are so well-documented, reviewing a lifetime of images would take a significant fraction of that lifetime. But having an image of the proposal also allows a couple to share the moment with friends and family. Since jewelers are also involved in proposal planning, maybe this new trend offers an opportunity to build a deeper relationship with the betrothed couple. Hire a photographer to document the proposal moment as a gift to the couple. (A local photographer who does a lot of weddings might agree to do it for very little for the referral.) When the couple comes in to pick up the image, you will have a great opportunity to let them know that you can also help them with wedding rings, gifts, and a bridal registry. Most importantly, by being involved in the marriage at the beginning, you are more likely to become the family jeweler, not just the place where he bought the ring. A gallery of proposal photos would make a great wall in your diamond room: a wonderful reminder of what the purchase is all about. With permission from the couples, they might even be wonderful material for your website or marketing campaigns too.

How much does the average wedding cost today? Some recent surveys have suggested that it’s about the cost of a car. Three recent highly-publicized surveys placed the average cost between $26,800 and $28,800. Of course, the surveys were conducted by The Knot, Conde Nast Bridal Media, and Wedding Report and the members and customers of these businesses are more interested in an elaborate wedding than the general population. (Those who opt for a civil ceremony or an impromptu elopement would bring down the average but they aren’t surveyed.) The Knot, the online wedding community, has the widest reach of the three: of the 2.2 million weddings last year, almost 40 percent involved members of The Knot. But the percentage responding to the survey is a small fraction of the number of members as a whole. The average cost of the weddings organized by the 2,014 members who responded to the survey was $27,400. But, as a recent article in The Wall Street Journal pointed out, this average is a mean: the costs of all the weddings is added up and divided by the number of respondents. This kind of average is easily skewed by a few super-expensive weddings. (If 54 weddings were under $10,000 and one was $1 million, the mean would be $28,000.) The median cost of the weddings surveyed: the response in the middle, with as many higher as lower, was $15,100. The median for the Conde Nast survey was $14,182 and the Wedding Report Survey was $14,400.

Let your customers know that half of the couples who are involved in planning the perfect wedding spend less than $14,000. Easing the peer pressure to spend the normal amount of $27,000 may free up some of the budget for the most important symbol of that union: the wedding bands. Too often, wedding bands are an afterthought, a last minute choice that the groom, in particular, is willing to economize on. According to the Wedding Report, in 2006 consumers spent only $1,739 on wedding jewelry, which they will wear for the rest of their lives. Compare this to $1,841 on wedding attire, $2,337 on their Wedding Ceremony, $1,104 on favors and gifts, $1,136 on flowers, $922 on music, $2,659 on photography and video, $13,692 on the reception, $809 on stationery, and $563 on transportation. When couples think about how long they will wear their wedding bands and how they symbolize their promises, they may decide to spend more on a symbol that will last long after the cake is eaten and the centerpieces wilt.