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1. TEMPTING TITANIUM
One of the more interesting debuts at the Vicenza show in January is a bevy of beautiful new collections of luxury jewelry created in titanium. Anodized titanium appears in blooms in lovely colors at Crivelli and Alfieri & St. John. Large butterfly brooches and sapphire earrings in titanium at Andreoli are feather light. Others already using the metal in cast and forged pieces include art jeweler Wallace Chan, David Yurman, and Douglas Ward. Men's wedding bands in titanium are probably in your cases right now. It's true that the first important high-end collection in titanium, the Vera Wang line by Rosy Blue, was an artistic success but a commercial disappointment. As gold flirts with four digits, could the time finally be right for luxury titanium?
2. ROUGH MEETS REFINED
Most of the important trends seen in Vicenza are no surprise: black and white; white agate; chocolate pearls, diamonds, and gold; milky diamonds; sea life; snakes; wood; tonal shading; long necklaces; and super-sized cocktail rings. But one of the most interesting new ideas stood alone. Stefan Hafner's new "Geode" collection takes fashion's newfound passion for rough diamond crystals and satisfies it in a new way. The Geode collection does evoke the clustered crystal forms of its namesake. But it's created not with rough but with brilliant cut black diamonds, set upside down. The pointy pavilions give the collection its unique and quite polished appeal.
3. OPAL ART
Teruko Okamoto is an artist and her medium is opal. She paints miniature foliage and creatures on boulder opal in gold using the Japanese technique of Maki-e. Each one-of-a-kind "Ran Opal" is adorned with a painting created with a powder of pure gold, platinum, and shell applied by brush with urushi, a natural lacquer from the sap of the urushi tree. Okamoto interprets the pattern of each opal as a landscape or seascape, transforming it into a unique scene, sealed into place with the lacquer. Ran Opal is available in the U.S. through Parlé.
4. BRIGHT IDEAS IN TUCSON
There were a lot of bright new ideas at the gem shows in Tucson. Bright red and pink spinel from Tanzania, bright orange spessartite garnet from Nigeria that resembles mandarin garnet from Namibia, and bright blue and green tourmaline from different sources in Africa. As you might expect with the dollar in decline, prices were generally high for high-quality gems in demand.
5. SHOW ME STATE
What does the jewelry industry need most? Did you say a few new shows? Well, the new ultra-exclusive "About J," organized by the Vicenza fair with top global brands exhibiting, will debut this month in Milan. If you weren't invited, never fear. You'll have two more new shows to choose from in 2009. The new JCK Luxury Bermuda, slated for March 2009, targets "elite U.S. and European retailers and brands." Then in April 2009, InStore magazine will organize a new jewelry show in Chicago.
6. TIME FOR THE DIAMOND GUILD?
After years of relying on De Beers to fund generic diamond advertising, there seems to be a grass roots movement to organize a new industry-wide effort to fund marketing. The International Diamond Manufacturers Association announced it is willing to take a leadership role in the creation of a fund to create an industry-wide generic diamond promotional effort. At the Israel Rough Conference, several speakers spoke of the need for all producers and manufacturers to contribute after Gareth Penny, De Beers managing director, implied that the company was no longer willing to carry the rest of the industry. Liz Chatelain of MVI Marketing also recently called for a "Got Jewelry?" generic promotional campaign at a meeting of manufacturers in Mumbai. Will the industry put its money where its mouth is?
author: Bret A. Morris, G.G.
A.R. Morris Jewelers, Wilmington, Delaware