Modern Jewelry Trends

In Vegas this year, Modern Jeweler had the chance to talk to Agostino Magni, the president of Testi USA Inc, the company behind the red-hot Rebecca brand.  Rebecca is relatively new to the U.S. market but is growing fast.  Magni says sales were up 325% from 2007 to 2008, and doubled again in the first quarter of 2009.  Most of the collection is in bronze with an 18k gold overlay but, unlike most bridge brands, Rebecca is targeting fine jewelry stores, not department stores.

“Our philosophy is that we want to be the first price points in the best jewelry stores,” Magni says.  He says Rebecca offers those stores something new and fresh.  “First of all, we attract new customers, customers who might be scared to be in a store where they sell Patek.  And there are customers who will buy Rebecca at $400 who will buy more expensive items also.  Everyone is considering price-points now.  Men today will decide not to buy a new suit but they will buy a new tie.  Then Rebecca also offers the opportunity for multiple sales.  Everything is in sets for add-on sales.”

Magni says that Rebecca’s marketing strategy is innovative too.  None of the brand’s significant marketing budget is allocated for national consumer advertising.  “America is a big market,” he explains. “In Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar you can’t compete with David Yurman. Aside from trade advertising, we invest all our marketing budget in our retail partners’ marketing programs.”

Rebecca is known for its special events. “We are aggressive and like to play out of the box,” Magni says. “We’ll empty a store and bring 600 or 700 pieces in, partner with a salon and a restaurant.  We’ll sell 127 pieces in a night.”

“Our best sales reps are our accounts,” Magni says. “At this price-point, in the kind of stores we are in, we need to turn six times a year.  And we do.”

The American Jewelry Design Council has selected Leila Tai as the winner of its prestigious 2009 new talent contest. Leila Tai is a jewelry artist, designer, and teacher who is known for her limited edition pieces and use of plique a jour enamel. From petals to butterflies, Tai’s nature-inspired collections such as “Spring” and “Wings” are one-of-a-kind with a focus on realism, movement, and flexibility.

Tai currently teaches jewelry design at the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Pratt Institute. The American Jewelry Design Council selects its winner based on originality, craftsmanship, innovation, marketability, and cohesiveness of design. Tai will receive a booth in the New Designer Gallery at the JA New York summer show, which will be held July 26-29. For more information, call (212) 757-2210 or visit www.leilataidesign.com.     — Matthew Kramer

Modern Jeweler’s June 2009 issue featured 89 Finds Under $500 retail because we heard from retail jewelers across the country that entry-level price points are the most important part of the market right now.

Once we started searching for them, we were surprised to be able to feature so many great affordable styles, including new designs from brands who are known for high-end fashion jewelry. But, turns out, we just uncovered the tip of the iceberg.

At the recent JCK show, at booth after booth we saw attractive, impulse-worthy jewelry that retails under $500. In fact, affordable styles were the most important trend at the show this year. (We saw so many, and heard from so many exhibitors that these were the styles that were selling, that we will be featuring Finds Under $500 in every issue going forward.)

Of course, many of these well-priced styles are in sterling silver, like these bamboo-inspired designs from John Hardy, below.  These earrings, which retail for $295, are fashionable forward-facing hoops, a trend, with concentric shapes, another trend.  Add in natural texture and the fact that they are sterling and under $500 and you have a show-full of trends in one.

Move over Golden Globes. January’s most influential fashion event was the inauguration. First lady Michelle Obama accessorized her lemongrass-yellow coat and dress ensemble by Isabel Toledo for the swearing-in ceremony with diamond studs. At the inaugural balls, she wore elegant diamond linear earrings and stacked diamond bangle bracelets by Loree Rodkin with her creamy one shoulder dress by Jason Wu. The night before at the “We Are One” Concert at the Lincoln Memorial, she also wore earrings by Loree Rodkin: diamond Quatrefoil chandelier earrings with lotus earwire and black diamond center.

As we reported earlier, Obama wore Loree Rodkin dangle earrings on election night too. Looks like we don’t just have a trend-setting first lady who loves diamond jewelry and wears it well. Looks like we have a new first jeweler too.

The movie Bride Wars didn’t break any box-office records but it did set a new standard for jewelry promotion. The big-screen saga of feuding best-friend brides, starring Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson, featured jewelry by Tiffany & Co. Blue box in hand, Hudson’s character orchestrates the perfect engagement, complete with fiancé on bended knee and the box’s dazzling contents—a five-carat Tiffany Novo diamond engagement ring. Anne Hathaway wears a Tacori blue bridal hairpin created especially for the film with five faceted blue jade petals surrounding a white topaz in sterling silver. The hairpin, a clever “something blue,” is now available to any Tacori retailer by special order.

In its forecast of the “next big things in weddings” in the November/December 2008 issue, Brides magazine predicts that “white diamonds may delight but black is where it’s at this season.” The magazine says that the dark diamonds are most effective in a traditional setting. The spread features a rose-cut three-stone black diamond ring with a circle of white diamond pave around the center stone by Karen Karch.

If you trace all trends back to celebrities, you’ll have to blame this one on Carmen Electra, who sports a two-carat rose-cut black diamond and platinum engagement ring.

Will brides who haven’t appeared in Playboy really choose black to symbolize the marriage promise? In a market where every woman says she wants something unique but buys basic variations on a few classic themes, I doubt it.

Perhaps this should be filed under “reasons why you can’t depend on consumer magazines for trend advice.”

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.

Trendy crafts may seem like an oxymoron, but one of the strongest trends in the urban scene is DIY handmade items. Knitting is coming back as a pastime. Hand decoration of shoes, shirts, and walls, with its aura of personalization, is replacing logos and brands as a signifier of taste. This influence is spreading into mainstream design as well, of course. In jewelry, hand finishes and organic-looking shapes that show the mark of the craftsman’s hand are a very strong trend. Those who don’t want to actually do-it-themselves represent a growing market for crafty entrepreneurs with an urban edge. One example of the hipster craft boom is the popular Renegade Craft Fair, which takes place twice a year in Chicago and once a year in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Last weekend 200 companies sold their handmade products at the Brooklyn edition of the fair, which has become an important style-spotting venue. Last year at the Renegade fair, for example, skulls, swallows, and branches were the most popular motifs. Skulls and branches were also very important in jewelry design last year and swallows are an important new motif this year. So what was the most important trend at this year’s Renegade fair? The handmade craft motif of the moment is sea life. The octopus and squid and other ocean creatures more creepy than cuddly are enjoying their moment in the spotlight (and on t-shirts, ties, cards, and hand-painted shoes.) Should we expect to see jewelry with tentacles? More than a few pieces were seen in Basel this year, including some spectacular South Sea pearl brooches by Autore (an octopus and even a jellyfish), so it’s quite possible.

We went to the shows in Vegas expecting to see a lot of new silver collections and we weren’t disappointed, despite the warming trend that has brought us more yellow and rose gold. The high price of gold, the importance of scale, the strong trend of blackened metals, and a new freedom of choice in “fine” materials have all combined to make silver, especially silver and gemstones, look like a pretty good option for many designers. And silver’s relative affordability helps designers create a fashionable look under $1,500 to tempt the self-purchasing woman consumer. In fact, there are so many interesting new silver collections that we’ll highlight a selection of them in our upcoming July issue. Gurhan’s new men’s collection (cufflinks below), a new upscale brand called Pure from Hot Diamonds, and a colorful almost over-the-top silver and pave sapphire collection called Calypso by Rina Limor by JR Gold (Calypso sapphire and silver necklace that retails for $1,300 below) are just the beginning. In fact there are so many new silver collections that you might think about asking all the vendors who have gold collections that sell well in your store if they have any new silver to show you. If they don’t, it may just be a matter of time.