Modern Jewelry Trends

1) Blood Diamond-Inspired Media Coverage of Conflict Diamond Issue: Every journalist knows you need a news hook for every feature. The movie Blood Diamond provided just that for media features on diamonds and conflict stories, providing a timely reason to survey the last ten years of conflict in diamond-producing countries and possible links to the brilliant gems. Global Witness, Amnesty International, and the industry itself helped fuel the fire, even leading to stories about how the other side was spinning stories. Despite all the noise, the movie itself didn’t seem to create much furor or much of an impact on the holiday season, which although not great, was as successful for jewelry as for other products. And thanks to an industry-wide education campaign, most jewelers were well-prepared to answer any questions. Still, when The New York Times devotes three feature stories to conflict diamonds in December, that has to have an impact on the industry’s image.
2) Journey Diamond Jewelry: The new Journey product category, which launched in January 2006, added new excitement to the pendant category. Most retailers report increasing interest in the Journey concept of diamonds that graduate in size to symbolize love that forever grows.
3) Bill Boyajian Leaves GIA, Baker New President: In the aftermath of the grading scandal of 2005, GIA continued to reorganize itself in 2006, culminating in the resignation of President Bill Boyajian, after 20 years of service. Late in the year, temporary president Donna Baker was made permanent by the increasingly activist board of directors of the non-profit institution. Baker has received praise for smoothly moving the institution beyond its turbulent year.
4) Palladium: With increasing price-point pressure of high metals prices, many jewelers started carrying palladium jewelry for the first time in 2006. The first to experiment: jewelers with custom shops and retailers who carry the new ArtCarved engagement line by Frederick Goldman, exclusively available in palladium.
5) Warming Trend: Rose gold, yellow gold, and gemstones in warm tones of brown, orange and gold dominated the palette in 2006 for the first time in years of icy white-on-white styling. A new naturalism inspired by flora and fauna also grew in popularity.
6) GIA Cut Grade: In this case, no news is good news. The first major change in GIA Diamond Grading Reports in a decade, the addition of a cut grade to all reports, went amazingly well. The transition was smooth and seamless. The new reports were quickly accepted in the market.
7) Sterling Now Number One: Thanks in part to turmoil at its biggest rival, Zale, Sterling rode several years of steady and strong growth into the number one specialty jewelry retailer position in 2006. The retailer plans even more growth, including the doubling of its extra-hot Jared division.
Collector’s Universe Enters Gem Lab Business: Public company Collector’s Universe, a force in the collectible coin and sports memorabilia markets, moved strongly into the jewelry market in 2006. After its purchase of Gem Certification & Appraisal Lab in late 2005 and American Gemological Laboratories in 2006, the company started investing for growth, opening new facilities for the two labs and launching marketing campaigns. More is sure to follow in 2007.
9) Fabrikant Files: One of the largest diamond and jewelry companies in the United States, M. Fabrikant & Sons, filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11, ending a year of negotiating with lenders and swirling rumors. The company’s filing became emblematic of the difficulties inherent in Supplier of Choice: even large companies face cash flow problems when they have to purchase diamond rough in cash and then sell with generous terms to large, increasingly powerful customers. Is this filing the first of many? 2007 will tell.
10) Push Presents: A grassroots phenomenon, the push present from a husband to his wife to celebrate the birth of a child is a fast-growing new occasion for giving jewelry.

The Natural Fancy Color Diamond Association has launched a new website to help educate consumers about the rare gems. Five buying tips on the site are: 1) Color is more important than size, 2) Learn about fancy diamonds on ncdia.com, 3) Request a report from a major laboratory, 4) Know your budget, and 5) Purchase from a knowledgeable jeweler. The site refers consumers to retailers who are members of the association. Want to be listed? To join the NCDIA, retailers must sell and promote natural color diamonds or at least want to. AGS members are automatically eligible but other retailers need a reference from a current NCDIA member (most fancy colored diamond suppliers belong). Other member benefits include a holiday selling guide by Diane-Warga Arias that will be available in the trade area of the site next week and a full sales training program planned for next spring. Membership fees range from $5,000 for chains to $500 for independents. To feast on more about fancies, check out our It’s all in the Mix story on the trend for mixed color fancy colored diamond jewelry and Defying Gravity story on the high-flying prices for these gems. Both ran in Modern Jeweler’s September 2006 issue.

The Lesotho Promise, a 603 carat rough diamond discovered by Gem Diamonds at the Letseng Mine in Lesotho, sold in Antwerp for $12.36 million to Safdico (South African Diamond Corporation.) Safdico is the manufacturing arm of Graff Jewellers. The 603-carat rough is the fifteenth-largest ever found.

In the market for a big diamond? I mean a really big diamond? Up for bid now in Antwerp: the 603-carat Lesotho Promise, the largest rough diamond found since the 777 carat Millennium Star in 1993. Of course both of those are puny compared to the 3,106 carats of the Cullinan, the long-time record holder found in 1905 in South Africa. The Letseng mine, which produced the gem on August 22, is jointly owned by the Gem Diamond Mining Company of Africa and the Lesotho government. According to its owners the rough is D-color. Clarity? Far from flawless, judging from the BBC’s photos of the elongated, roughly golf-ball-sized rough. The winning bid will be announced next week. “A figure of around $10 million is something that we are expecting it to achieve as the minimum, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Clifford Elphick, chief executive of the Gem Diamond Company, told iAfrica. “It does have a couple of glitches, which are really cracks in it, and so unfortunately, it won’t polish into a single stone …. it will polish into a number of stones, probably an 80 carat being the biggest.”

A new website from La Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie, www.hautehorlogerie.org, has detailed information on fine watches and watchmaking for retailers, collectors, and anyone who knows what a tourbillon is. (For those who don’t, the site also includes a glossary with illustrated definitions of 400 technical watchmaking terms.)  It is a comprehensive introduction to how watches are made and the arcane world of complications for sales staff and includes lots of history from top brands, including A. Lange & Sohne, Audemars Piguet, Cartier, Girard Perregaux, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Panerai, Parmigiani Fleurier, Piaget, Vacheron Constantin, and Van Cleef & Arpels.

Canada’s Northwest Territories has joined forces with Arslanian Cutting Works, Polar Diamond Group, Aurora College, the city of Yellowknife, and Northwest Territories Tourism to offer retailers an online resource to help them promote official Canadian-certified diamonds.

To join the club, you’ve got to take a “diamond intelligence test.”

If you pass, you’ll have access to Arctic-themed point-of-sale materials, co-op advertising, public and media relations help, diamond news, sales incentives, an impressive certificate signed by the premier of the Northwest Territories Joseph Handley (suitable for framing, no doubt), links from a Canadian diamond web site, and a personalized membership card.