Modern Jewelry Trends

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.

Both the Couture and JCK shows are underway in Vegas. There are lots of great new collections. So far I’ve seen a lot of new silver collections, new men’s collections, and some over the top promotional items like a million dollar ice cream cone set with Lazare Kaplan ideal-cut diamonds. Modern Jeweler’s new Jewelry Video Network has some previews of collections on that you won’t want to miss. Check out our videos of the new Top Cat collection by Stephen Webster, the Vortex and Seedpod collections by Rodney Rayner, the Captured collection by Shaun Leane, and the chandelier collection by Mattioli.

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.

Although Ventura is known for mechanical chronometers in hardened titanium, the watch brand also has always included high-end digital watches, including the 1990 “watch” by Danish designer Flemming Bo Hansen which is in the permanent design collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2000, Ventura introduced the world’s first self-winding digital watch, SPARC, still the only of its kind. Ventura’s v-tec line of digitals features contemporary design and a unique operating system: instead of pushbuttons it uses a single cylindrical wheel-barrel, for scrolling through multiple functions just like on an iPod. Two new v–tec styles will be launched at the Basel fair this April: Kappa and Zeta. Kappa is a rectangular design by Swiss architect and designer Hannes Wettstein. The v-tec Kappa, shown below, is titanium which has been exposed to high pressure and heat under vacuum before being cooled by liquid nitrogenand covered with a layer of liquid glass coating to resist fingerprints and protect from scratches. If that’s not high-tech enough for you, there is a special matte-black ion-coated Kappa with an even harder surface. Kappa will be available in early summer starting at around $2,000. For high-tec women, the new v-tec Zeta is a smaller unisex version of the Sigma men’s watch, designed by Paolo Fancelli, who also designed the Sigma and the SPARC rx. The Zeta will be available in early summer starting at $ 1,600.

Abondance, a new jewelry collection by Faberge that will be launched at this year’s Basel fair, piles on gemstones in a profusion of different cuts, sizes, and colors set at different heights and accented with yellow and white gold discs and complex, guilloche enamel circles in pastel green adorned with stars. It’s delightfully too much.

The 2007 Baselworld watch and jewelry fair in Basel, Switzerland is scheduled for April 12-19, 2007. In the next few weeks we will bring you a preview of the abundance of new products that will be launched in Basel this year.

GoldVish, the luxury phone company that is affiliated with sightholder Dianish, will exhibit in Basel this year, displaying a million-euro diamond encrusted phone that is the ultimate in over-the-top functional luxury. The diamond-encrusted TV and the diamond iPod headphones are just publicity stunts in comparison, as GoldVish’s business model actually seems to be working (although the million-euro phone is definitely aimed at the large press contingent in Basel.) “GoldVish is ready to expand, market, and distribute the most exclusive cell phone brand on a global scale,” says Michel Morren, company founder. “There is no better location to take this important step than at Baselworld, the world’s leading show for the watch and jewelry industry.”

A look at the party pictures from Oscar night confirms what we saw on the red carpet. When it comes to jewelry, the new Hollywood uniform is an armful of bangles and cuffs and a bare neck, worn with a strapless or one-shoulder dress, usually embellished with beading or other ornamentation. The only individuality is on the ear, where there’s still a lot of variety: studs and clusters are becoming much stronger but chandeliers still have fans, especially actresses who like to wear their tresses long. Hoops and linear earrings also work well. So how does something like this happen? Do all the stylists wake up one day and decide it’s all about the wrist? (Modern Jeweler did do a fashion feature on the cuff last fall.) This wrist focus could be the most important jewelry style legacy of the Oscars. The balance and proportions seem to have shifted.

Gianfranco Ferré presented a brilliant fall 2007 women’s collection in Milan last Friday, quite literally. The final design on the runway was a black corset studded with 900 diamonds weighing 300 carats. The diamonds, courtesy of sightholder Dalumi, were hand-sewn onto the silk of the fabric one by one. The sparkling shirt, worn with tuxedo pants and a silk cape by British singer Skin, is valued at $1.3 million.

A trend toward bejeweled and ornamented dresses made this a less than stellar year for fine jewelry at the Oscars. The main jewelry trend was for large diamond cuffs and stacked diamond bangles. Dresses were often strapless, which made the lack of necklaces even more striking. One prominent necklace, the Cartier brooch worn as a pendant by Rachel Weisz, clashed with her ornamented dress, drawing criticism from the “style experts” assessing red carpet looks (although not as much as the strange short golden jacket sported by Jennifer Hudson that she wisely took off before the ceremony). Neutral, bronze, and blush gowns dominated. The trend for rose cut diamonds and blackened metal seen at the Golden Globes continued. Gwyneth Paltrow had one of the most successful looks, with Fred Leighton rose-cut chandelier earrings visible with her sleek hair wrapped over one shoulder. Many pieces, like the black and white diamond Lorraine Schwartz earrings worn by Cate Blanchett and the diamond drops worn by Jessica Biel, featured blackened gold or platinum that added to the vintage appeal. Style icon Nicole Kidman, also with her hair over one shoulder, had the most stunning jewelry of the night: wide cuff bracelets with 357 carats of natural rough maccle diamonds in a mosaic pattern that were designed by L’wren Scott and created by William Goldberg, part of the sightholder Leo Schachter group. The bracelets were beautiful and also completely on trend.

With fashion week winding up in New York, the tones of the fall fashion season seem clear. Black and brown continue as the foundation of a dark palette, enlivened by jewel tones like red, teal, green and purple that work with either black or brown. This may indicate a move back to saturated clear gemstone colors from the pale, soft muted tones that currently dominate jewelry sales. Given the influence of sixties style and mod shapes this season, that isn’t a surprise. Pantone has created a list of the ten top colors used in fall collections which is headed by chili pepper red, which appeared in 16.7 percent of the season’s collections. The report cites fashion’s “spicy side” this season.  (For an indication of what that might mean for jewelry, see the Richard Palermo design for Color Craft below.) The color of red Pantone has selected is not exactly ruby red, it’s more of an orangey carnelian red. That may explain reports just coming in of brisk sales of orange gemstones in Tucson. At recent shows, warm tones of orange to brown to gold seemed to indicate a warming trend and the return to dominance of yellow gold. As we featured in the February issue, once-forgotten brown is now becoming a gem staple. The other important color story for the year, and sure to be very important this spring and summer, is blue and green, always a winner in gemstone jewelry sales thanks to the affordable and attractive gemstone options.