Southern Jewelry News
  • Featured
    • All
    • Featured
    • Featured Retailers
    • Retailer Roundtable
    • Sponsored Content
    • Supplier Spotlight
    Lambrecht’s Jewelers, 130-years-old and counting
    Celebrate with Gold®
    Tracing Diamond’s Origin
    Pickens, Inc.: Steady pace wins the race
  • Latest News
    • All
    • COVID-19
    • Furry Friends
    • Industry Awards
    • Industry Events
    • NRF
    • On The Move
    • Other News
    • Tradeshow News
    • Video
    • What's New
    Stuller introduces several new offerings at JCK Las Vegas
    JSA reports crimes against U.S. jewelry firms in 2021 exceeded pre-Covid levels
    GCAL partners with VDB to add 8X® Cut Grade search filter
    Registration opens for HardRock Summit 2022
  • Podcast
  • Columnists
    The Retailer’s Perspective: With great power comes great fails
    The Retailer’s Perspective
    The Story Behind the Stone: Yearning for Kazakhstan
    10 Cybersecurity Questions small and medium businesses should ask in 2022
    Motivating your sales staff
    IAS Training’s Keys to Effective Communication – Part III
    Kate’s star-studded style. What will the next trend be?
    Motivating your sales staff
    IAS Training’s Keys to Effective Communication – Part II
    Retailing in a post-PC world
    Motivating your sales staff
    IAS Training’s Keys to Communication
  • Classifieds
  • Subscriptions
    • Newsletter Signup
    • Print Subscription
No Result
View All Result
Southern Jewelry News
  • Featured
    • All
    • Featured
    • Featured Retailers
    • Retailer Roundtable
    • Sponsored Content
    • Supplier Spotlight
    Lambrecht’s Jewelers, 130-years-old and counting
    Celebrate with Gold®
    Tracing Diamond’s Origin
    Pickens, Inc.: Steady pace wins the race
  • Latest News
    • All
    • COVID-19
    • Furry Friends
    • Industry Awards
    • Industry Events
    • NRF
    • On The Move
    • Other News
    • Tradeshow News
    • Video
    • What's New
    Stuller introduces several new offerings at JCK Las Vegas
    JSA reports crimes against U.S. jewelry firms in 2021 exceeded pre-Covid levels
    GCAL partners with VDB to add 8X® Cut Grade search filter
    Registration opens for HardRock Summit 2022
  • Podcast
  • Columnists
    The Retailer’s Perspective: With great power comes great fails
    The Retailer’s Perspective
    The Story Behind the Stone: Yearning for Kazakhstan
    10 Cybersecurity Questions small and medium businesses should ask in 2022
    Motivating your sales staff
    IAS Training’s Keys to Effective Communication – Part III
    Kate’s star-studded style. What will the next trend be?
    Motivating your sales staff
    IAS Training’s Keys to Effective Communication – Part II
    Retailing in a post-PC world
    Motivating your sales staff
    IAS Training’s Keys to Communication
  • Classifieds
  • Subscriptions
    • Newsletter Signup
    • Print Subscription
No Result
View All Result
Southern Jewelry News
No Result
View All Result
Home Columnists

Applied Marketing 101 – The view from Vicenza

George Prout by George Prout
March 1, 2013
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

As I write this, I am returning to America from the Vicenzaoro Show on a Delta 767 bound for Kennedy airport. The Winter Vicenza Show is the annual starting point for style and design in the world of precious metals, so if you want to understand the trends, you come here. Yes, I will also be in Hong Kong in March, and it is only after I’ve visited that city’s Show that I’ll start to pull the trigger on what we’ll be merchandising for the Fall Season, but if you really want to understand “what’s next” in our industry, it will have its roots in Vicenza.

No culture understands design and style like the Italians. Yes, their politics are more soap opera than statesmanship, and their economy is in a terrible mess, but when it comes to the creation of a thing of beauty from the inanimate, there is simply no finer eye or hand than that of an Italian. And in recent years, the Italians have needed every possible degree of artistic resourcefulness in order to navigate the combination of the global recession and the historic rise in the price of gold.

The Italian manufacturers, as well as the entire global gold jewelry supply network, have reacted to events beyond their control in a number of ways, by taking maximum advantage of three different metals. Let’s consider each of these separately.

GOLD

In a rising gold market, the central objectives in the jewelry design process are self-evident: use less gold, because it’s expensive, and use more air, because it’s free. The challenge, of course, is to do so in a manner that is aesthetically pleasing, and still structurally sound. And prior history suggests that the key to responding successfully to the challenge doesn’t lie solely in design. It also lies in engineering.

The gold spike that occurred in the ‘80s produced a wide array of manufacturing innovations, from the use of metal molds in the casting process, to the production of new kinds of hollow tube extrusions. But in my view, the most extraordinary innovation during the last gold spike was the shift in production to manufacturing techniques borrowed from Silicon Valley, where ultra-lightweight earrings were “printed” in the same manner that computer chips are produced.

Unfortunately, the last wave of innovations yielded products that were flat and uninteresting, as well as structurally compromised, to the extent that today’s gold producers have been forced to look elsewhere for innovative ways to bring down the weight, and therefore the cost, of their gold products. During the past several days, I saw a variety of manufacturing marvels, including the most recent evolutions of elastic gold weaves that mimic woven textiles, as well as extremely fine three dimensional latticework that was still exceptionally strong in spite of its light weight.

As one Arezzo manufacturer told me, “First, I have to design and build a machine. Then I play around with it, to see what it can do.” It seems that everyone in Italy is now designing machines, to see what they can do, and the results are amazing. This Fall, you can expect to see some exceptional new design trends that may actually breathe new life into gold.

SILVER

It’s extremely important to recognize that the population of skilled craftsmen who produced the fine Italian gold products that we have sold for years didn’t suddenly disappear. They are still there, and they are still working. The total value of Italy’s precious metal exports may have plummeted, as gold lost its luster, but in order to understand the trends, one must recognize that the same high grade craftsman who was making gold jewelry six  years ago is still making jewelry. It’s just composed of a different metal: Silver. And I’m not referring here to the cheap silver jewelry that we see coming out of the orient. The styling and finish of the silver jewelry I’ve been reviewing in Vicenza is simply exquisite.

The important question that I can’t yet answer is whether the American fine jewelry community will find it easy to embrace plated silver. Pandora certainly solved the resistance that many had to selling silver in a “Fine Jewelry” environment, and designer lines like Rebecca have softened the typical American retailer’s resistance to the idea of selling something with a micron finish.

There is no question that we saw the yellow tone and the pink tone heat up this past Christmas, suggesting to me that a subtle shift away from the silver color has begun, but there is still an intrinsic uneasiness that I detect coming from many old line jewelers about selling a plated product. So, will the silver we’ll be selling this Fall be silver in color, or will it be other tones? If what I saw in Vicenza is any indication, I am inclined to believe that as long as consumers want new colors, yet spend in lower price points, plated silver is going to get pretty hot in fashion accessory price points.

BRONZE

Simply put, Bronze is the game changer. From the major department stores to the major chains, yellow plated bronze has been selling like it’s on fire, with annual rates of turnover in the 7 to 10 time range, and margins that are very, very friendly. In reaction to what I’ve been hearing, we actually put a plated bronze Byzantine set in our Christmas flyers, under the name “Eleganza di Vicenza”, just to see what would happen. Predictably, our customers were a little leery of it, and placed initial orders in very small quantities. But then a funny thing happened when 10 million Christmas flyers hit the street in mid-December. Consumers didn’t just like it. They loved it!

So part of my motivation in going to Vicenza this week was to develop additional sources, and build a product line made of plated bronze. And I won’t tell you who else I saw doing the same thing, but based on the fact that some of the smartest folks I know were there in Vicenza, engaged in exactly the same process, I think you’re about to see an explosion of activity in this area. 

This may actually result in two outcomes. First, if you’re an independent jeweler, you’re probably going to be selling gold plated bronze in the very near future. Second, the sudden predominance of gold-colored jewelry being worn by American women may be the catalyst that finally flips the generational switch, reviving gold as the must-have jewelry color, and instantly rendering obsolete every white gold item in every woman’s jewelry box.

And wouldn’t that just be wonderful!

Class Dismissed!

George Prout is Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Gems One Corporation, and can be reached via e-mail at info@gemsone.com, or by phone at Gems One’s New York office at 800-436-7787.

 

George Prout

George Prout

George Prout is President of the Independent Division of Craft Diamonds, and can be reached at george@craftdiamonds.co.

Related Posts

The Retailer’s Perspective: With great power comes great fails

The Retailer’s Perspective

June 30, 2022

The Story Behind the Stone: Yearning for Kazakhstan

June 30, 2022

10 Cybersecurity Questions small and medium businesses should ask in 2022

June 27, 2022
Motivating your sales staff

IAS Training’s Keys to Effective Communication – Part III

June 22, 2022

Latest News

Industry Events

Stuller introduces several new offerings at JCK Las Vegas

July 4, 2022
Other News

JSA reports crimes against U.S. jewelry firms in 2021 exceeded pre-Covid levels

July 4, 2022
On The Move

GCAL partners with VDB to add 8X® Cut Grade search filter

July 4, 2022

Other News

Registration opens for HardRock Summit 2022

NRF says economy is slowing but recession is unlikely in near term

American Gem Society targets negotiation skills for Confluence 2022

Lambrecht’s Jewelers, 130-years-old and counting

Celebrate with Gold®

Tracing Diamond’s Origin

Southern Jewelry News

© 2022 Southern Jewelry News.

Additional Information

  • About
  • 2022 Trade Shows
  • Media Kit
  • Contact

Get Social with Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Featured Articles
    • Featured
    • Featured Retailers
    • Retailer Roundtable
    • Supplier Spotlight
    • Sponsored Content
  • Latest News
    • What’s New
    • Industry Events
    • Tradeshow News
    • On The Move
    • Other News
    • Furry Friends
  • Columnists
  • Classifieds
  • Subscriptions
    • Newsletter Signup
    • Print Subscription

© 2022 Southern Jewelry News.