Modern Jewelry Trends

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!

At Modern Jeweler, we love the Spectrum Awards because this gemstone jewelry competition organized by the American Gem Trade Association often discovers new talent, including great designers at retail stores across the country. (Just take a look at the spectacular winning designs in our February Issue, Colorful Champions.)

But every year at the AGTA press event that showcases all the entries our editors find a few pieces that we think really should have won. We think you would too. Now AGTA is offering all would-be jewelry design judges like us a chance to discover all the great jewelry in the competition that didn’t win a Spectrum Award. Images of all the pieces entered are available for viewing in the online Spectrum Awards Collection.

Some of our picks, pieces designed by Suz Andreasen, R. Bruce Henderson, David Clark, Klaus Kutter, and Sylva Yepremian are featured below. And believe me, there are plenty of other great designs we could have picked. Feel free to post links to your favorite pieces as well!

In the jewelry business, it sometimes seems that the really creative designers are not the most successful. But a new development could prove that wrong. Jewelry innovator and trendsetter Stephen Webster now has the financial backing to accelerate the growth of his company. The rock and roll jeweler just went Wall Street. Financier (and FOB) Ron Burkle of Yucaipa, which owns crown jeweler Garrard, like Webster also based in London, has purchased part ownership of Stephen Webster. Webster plans to use the capital to open retail stores, increase worldwide distribution, and expand his more affordable silver collection, now available only at Neiman Marcus in the US. Webster has a successful retail location in London and plans stores in New York, Kiev, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan “immediately,” according to a report in today’s WWD. The article also talks about a previously unannounced upcoming Stephen Webster collection for De Beers Jewelers called “Burning Rocks.” Stephen Webster is most known for his groundbreaking Crystal Haze Collection, which layers facted rock crystal over brightly colored opaque gems to create unique gem colors and shapes. The announcement includes some details about Webster’s impressive growth in the past few years: sales in 2005 were $8 million and in 2006 they doubled to $16 million. Apparently, you can take those numbers to the bank.

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.

One of the most interesting collections launched at the Baselworld show this year is the extravagant one-of-a-kind jewelry of Wallace Chan of Hong Kong. Chan has long been a gem engraver and his portraits carved inside gemstones are as distinctive as they are original. His new collection of jewelry uses cast and carved titanium to reproduce the natural world. Chan has managed to create large and amazingly light pieces in this difficult metal, depicting insects, fish, and other creatures in bejewelled earrings, brooches, rings, and art pieces of breathtaking scale and detail. The whole collection will officially launch at the September show in Hong Kong.

Natalie Padveen, owner and lead designer of Mystic Fe Designs, got the inspiration for her new line of jewelry during a trip to Iceland where she discovered the ancient powers of Nordic runes, the pictorial alphabetic script that came into use in Europe around 500 B.C. “Rune” is derived from the word “runa,” meaning “secret” or “mystery.” For centuries, Norse people have these magical symbols for good fortune. They are also kind of cool looking, which doesn’t hurt either. Padveen’s new jewelry collection is focused on five runes: Peace, Love, Good Health, Good Luck, and Protection. She uses the five runes in a sterling silver collection of dog tags for men and women and a 14k gold and diamond collection of cuff bracelets, rings and pendants. Retail pricepoints range from $325 for a sterling silver dog tag to $2465 for a diamond pave symbol on a gold plate. If these runes really do have powers, Mystic Fe is destined to succeed: it’s named “Fe,” the Icelandic name for the Fehu rune which is said to provide success, advancement in career, wealth and prosperity.