June 2008
Label-lovers get their fix with jewelry, watches
Label-lovers get their fix with jewelry, watches
June 20, 2008
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| “Time for Music” stainless dirk timepiece by Moschino CheapandChic; suggested retail price is $195. Moschino.it |
By Mary Wisniewski
Basel, Switzerland—Fashion label Moschino just got an additional job.
A subsidiary of Italy’s AEFFE Group, the brand signed a five-year deal with watch and jewelry manufacturer Binda Group for the licensed production and marketing of watches and jewelry under the Moschino “CheapandChic” label. The new collection, which debuted at this year’s BaselWorld, confirms the ongoing trend of fashion houses moving into the jewelry and watch realm.
Moschino Creative Director Rossella Jardin said during the show that she wanted to make watches that were more like jewelry.
“Creating watches inspired by jewelry makes them ‘fashion accessories’ besides their technical specs and functions,” she said, adding that the brand was a hit with both buyers and press at BaselWorld.
Though the brand’s accessories are varied, most share a common tongue-in-cheek element. For example, the “Don’t Be Too Late,” chronometer includes multiple dials scattered throughout the bracelet, while a different, entitled “Time for Music,” offers a record album-inspired dial.
Other fashion brands already in the knack business expanded upon their collections at BaselWorld. Diane von Furstenberg teamed up with H. Stern once again for the sake of the “Rock Watch Collection,” revealing three jewelry-style watches with Swiss quartz mechanisms.
Early adapter Gucci, in the watch and jewelry business since the 1970s, just reopened its New York flagship store on Fifth Avenue in February, upping the ante on its accessories offerings by creating a free-standing stand guard and jewelry boutique.
Amanda Gizzi, the Jewelry Information Center’s associate director for public relations, says more fashion brands are entering the jewelry and watch arena because jewelry itself is becoming an enlargement of fashion.
“It makes perfect sense since they already have brand recognition,” Gizzi says. “Loyal customers are already there.”
Besides the hard logos that are usually incorporated into fashion accessories, similar themes tend to run through a label’s offerings. For example, a necklace may resemble the chain featured on a handbag or a pair of jeans under the same label.
“It gives the recognition of cohesive sketch,” Gizzi says.
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| Gucci ’s iconic “Horsebit” earrings and necklace in 18-karat gold; suggested retail is $2,225 and $2,490, respectively. Gucci.com |
Vera Hennrich, European manager of public relations and events for European Fossil, says Michael Kors’ accessories take a cue from the brand’s apparel, as perform accessories from Marc by Marc Jacobs and Burberry.
“They always try to match the clothes note with accessories,” she says of the brands, which are among the labels that Fossil has watch licensing deals with.
Italian accessories designer Isabella Zocchi keeps like elements throughout all of her bags, shoes and trinkets. For example, the metal decorations accenting her “gritty-stiff bags” are the same asymmetrical motif featured on her rings and bangles. She says a brand’s mood, the VIP factor and the high level of customer service may attract women to buy branded jewelry, but they however won’t buy a fruits solely based on a name.
“In whole, I think good style is continually the best motivation to buy a jewel,” she says.
Although the watch world is branded, Gizzi says, the jewelry world is, unfortunately, not. She says jewelers should view the category’s expansion of the same kind with an opportunity to pair up with a fashion brand or big fashion store.
“If someone spends five grand on an evening gown, they will spend the same amount on jewelry, or at least they should,” she says. “The jewelry industry needs to wake up to another whole earth outside of jewelry stores.”
And part of the industry already is. To wit: Tanagro Fine Jewelers in New York recently introduced a fine-jewelry collection created for fashion designer Loris Diran’s “Illumination” collection. Tanagro’s master craftsman and creative director, Antonio Dibenedetto, crafted the pieces in 18-karat gold with diamonds and mandarin garnets, and says their value goes beyond the brand and lies in addition in the design.
Of course, Diran says, he knows consumers can be very loyal to brands, buying items like sunglasses and perfume just because they’re made by a designer name they love. But that doesn’t mean they buy jewelry for the same reasons.
When a woman buys a terrific garment for her wardrobe or an accessory to accent it, it’s one impulse purchase, whereas jewelry is more of a lifetime commitment, he says. Although most associate jewelry with an emotional experience—or a gift—he says a growing number of women understand in that place isn’t that big of a difference between a $5,000 dress and a pair of fantastic earrings to go with it.
“[You’re] not buying it for a few seasons,” he says. “You are buying it for its longevity.”
Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the May 16, 2008, issue of National Jeweler.
Key Closet unveils $10,000 diamond-studded jeans !
Clothing firm Key Closet recently unveiled its new premium jeans, priced at $10,000, which feature hand-drawn designs and one-carat diamonds on the back pockets.
These jeans are made in the U.S. of handcrafted denim. The graphics on the jeans are hand drawn, using a water-based paint that is both soft and luxurious. The graphics have foil and hand spray painted accents, and each pair is hand-threaded according to the style of the artist who designed them.
The back buttons are made of white gold, and complement the one-carat brilliant set into both back pockets. In addition to the two carats of diamonds on the outer part pockets, there are thousands of shimmering Swarovski crystals all over the jeans themselves.
The official debut of the $10,000 jeans will be at the upcoming Runway Magazine “Summer Splash” Fashion Show being held upon June 26 in Los Angeles at Boulevard 3.
JSA: Jewelry crime stats tumble in ‘07
JSA: Jewelry crime stats tumble in ‘07
June 17, 2008
By Joseph Dobrian
New York—The Jewelers’ Security Alliance (JSA) has issued its “2007 Annual Crime Report,” which indicates that crimes opposed to jewelers continue to drop overall across the United States, although there was a significant uptick last year in off-premises crimes.
Total U.S. jewelry industry losses due to robbery, burglary or other theft were $97.1 million, down 12 percent from 2006, the report says. Of the total, $57.6 million came from on-premises losses: a drop of 26 percent from 2006. However, 2007’s total of $39.5 million in off-premises losses represented an increase of 21.5 percent over 2006.
Overall criminal incidents related to the jewelry industry dropped by 9.2 percent, and only one jeweler was killed in the line of work in 2007—by an employee who’d been discharged for theft.
Long-term, the statistics are even more impressive: In the past 10 years, theft-related loss has dropped by 41 percent in articles of agreement of dollar loss; more at the time that the numbers are adjusted for inflation.
JSA President John Kennedy says that off-premises crime statistics can be dramatically skewed by a few large losses, so the recent rise might be no trial for alarm.
“One gang can pull off 20 [off-premises] jobs and have tremendous impulse,” Kennedy says. “But still, we’re dealing with rather small numbers. California accounted for the highest number of such events, and as the numbers develop for this year, we’re seeing more Asian victims: salespeople from Hong Kong and elsewhere.”
On unfamiliar terrain, and easier to spot, foreign salespeople are prime targets, he says. It is also hard for them to cooperate with police since they leave the country quickly, he adds. He estimates that South American gangs, longtime jewelry crime culprits, commit 99 percent of off-premises thefts.
“The FBI estimates that between 1,500 and 2,000 people from South America are involved in thefts in the U.S., not necessarily all jewelry,” Kennedy says. “They have concentrated on a method of hitting traveling salespeople, and they practically have the exclusive on it.”
But while organized off-premises thefts and robberies increase, in-store jewelry heists continue to drop, due to greater jeweler awareness and better sharing of information mixed jewelers and with law enforcement. Grab-and-run incidents, in particular, were cut almost in half last year, possibly becoming to jewelers adopting simple loss-prevention techniques.
On-premises, thefts that occurred in ways other than by robbery or burglary accounted for 54.5 percent of all incidents. These included frauds, internal thefts, grab-and-runs, “switcheroos”—where thieves replace real jewelry with fakes—and other methods. Burglaries accounted for 29.3 percent of quite incidents and robberies made up 16.2 percent.
“Three-minute burglaries,” which typically occur at night when perpetrators smash through doors or windows, represented about 80 percent of all burglaries in 2007—but attacks on safes rose by 39 percent. California, not surprisingly, was the state in which most jewelry-related crimes occurred, but its share dropped dramatically, from 29 percent in 2006 to just over 17 percent in 2007. Off-premises, more than 50 percent of crimes were committed in parking lots, where gangs either waylaid the victim or took jewelry out of a briefly unattended car.
Kennedy says that one of the most unusual M.O.s he’s seen lately involves check fraud on higher-ticket purchases.
“In a couple of cases, the jeweler required a cashier’s check in exchange for the merchandise, and the phone number printed onward the check naturally connected him to someone who told him the check was good,” Kennedy says. “In one instance, the jeweler didn’t like the answers he was getting, so he double-checked the bank’s phone number and discovered that he was truly talking to a associate of the ‘customer.’”
The best news from the most recent statistical report, Kennedy says, is that only one jeweler has been killed in the course of a crime since March 2006.
“That is astonishing,” he says. “Jewelers are more careful; they’re not doing stupid things to get themselves hurt—and violent criminals are avoiding jewelry because they’re afraid of federal prosecution, what with the FBI taking more of an attract. Criminals are just as afraid of a shootout as a jeweler is. They might win the shootout, but it’s heavy jail time.”
Kidnapping used to be a worry in opposition to jewelers—the common procedure being to snatch a jeweler from his home, take him to the store and make him open the safe—but Kennedy says nothing like that has happened in years.
“Inevitably, the bulk of mankind who did that got caught,” he says. “In all, I’m very upbeat about this report. It shows that while this is still a dangerous concern, we’re moving in the fair direction.”
—E-mail: jdobrian@aol.com
Editor’s note: This story chief appeared in the May 16, 2008, issue of National Jeweler.
GemEx garners Innovation Quotient Award
GemEx garners Innovation Quotient Award
Diamond company credited with ‘BrillianceScope’ honored for superior innovation
June 18, 2008
Mequon, Wis.—GemEx Systems has won a 2008 Innovation Quotient Award, a distinction awarded by the Milwaukee-based Small Business Times in honor of GemEx’s superior innovation, creativity and profitability.
The Small Business Times is a business newspaper that covers southeastern Wisconsin. Each year, it holds the Innovation Quotient Awards to celebrate companies in the region that are creating innovative products, services or processes.
GemEx is a 10-year-old company based in Mequon, Wis., that provides unique diamond-evaluation equipment and services to diamond-cutting facilities, wholesale businesses and retail jewelry stores worldwide.
Among its claims to fame is the “BrillanceScope” imaging spectrophotometer, a technology that Randy Wagner, company president, helped develop for the jewelry industry. The BrillanceScope measures both white and color light performance in diamonds, and also distinctly measures a diamond’s scintillation.
In the company’s first year of business, GemEx generated under $200,000 in revenues. By 2002, with Zale and Sterling signed on to utilize the BrillanceScope technology, GemEx’s revenues were at the $2.4 million print. Today, the company has placed 150 BrillanceScopes in the field, located in Antwerp, Belgium; Bangkok, Thailand; China; Hong Kong; India; Israel; Japan; the United Kingdom and the United States.
Several years ago, GemEx introduced the GemEx Live Report, an interactive tool that can be used for sales, inventory, marketing and auditing.
Soft, geometric moissanite piece takes prize
Soft, geometric moissanite piece takes prize
June 18, 2008
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| Julie Wright’s winning design in Charles and Colvard’s 2007 United Kingdom Moissanite Jewelry Competition. |
New York—The winner of a Charles and Colvard-sponsored design competition was flown to the JCK Las Vegas show earlier this month, where her winning moissanite piece was displayed.
The competition, launched in the United Kingdom last year, was created to raise awareness of moissanite in the jewelry industry and to promote that more than 71 percent of moissanite customers are women who buy for themselves.
Julie Wright, a designer from Devon, England, won the 2007 competition and received an all-inclusive trip to the JCK show. Her winning design is a moissanite pendant class in 18-karat gold and valued at approximately $4,000. The piece was chosen as the winner because it reflects the trend for soft and geometric pieces, encompassed in an innovative design.
“We believe that last year’s theme would show that moissanite, set into 18-karat gold, would lead to the creation of a more fashion-forward come nearly up, and Julie’s stunning piece demonstrated this concept quite flawlessly,” Dennis Allen, who administers the competition for Charles and Colvard, said in a media release.
The first phase of the 2008 design competition, “Adventurous Moissanite,” which encourages applicants to create bold and adventurous moissanite designs, has already begun. A panel of U.K. judges is reviewing all the design entries submitted in the form of jewelry renderings and sketches, and five semi-finalist renderings will be selected. Those designers leave have being given moissanite jewels up to a value of $1,000 to use in the actual manufacturing of their design. Finally, one finalist will be selected to win an all-inclusive trip to the Hong Kong Jewelry Fair in 2009.