A Pre-New Year Jewellery Selling Exhibition entitled “Jeweller-3” is currently taking place at the Sokolniki Exhibition Center in Moscow.
What adornments do the Russians prefer to give as gifts for the New Year? How much is a Russian buyer ready to spend for a precious present? What will be swanky to give as gifts and to wear in the next year? and What is “beautiful”? – Rough&Polished discussed these topics with exhibition participants, Russian and foreign jewellery makers.
Demid Shevchenko, Venus Jewellery, a Moscow jewellery factory:
Our people are mainly after inexpensive items with small stones, diamonds, emeralds and sapphires.
Next year medium items will come into fashion. Large and pretentious things go. Cabochon will go. There is a bent towards a laconic, modest and expensive style.
Natalya, Magia Zolota, a network of jewellery boutiques
Now people buy everything – silver and gold, pendants and rings.
Large stones are in vogue, they are in excess demand and this tendency will be preserved for several years.
Sonmez Enes Said, Roberto Bravo, Italy:
When people buy gifts, they are mainly taking classic things. Buying a jewel for a present, they mean that someone will wear it. This is why buyers prefer to avoid risks and not to take exclusive items. Before holiday, there is a great demand, for instance, for pendants with a heart or a flower, or for chains with pendants. I think that during the next season classic items will be again in vogue. Large stones, cabochons, multi-gem adornments are leaving and they will be replaced with a small classic diamond.
Alexander Ledyanoi, Krastsvetmet, Yekaterinburg:
On the New Year’s Eve, people accumulate some money and buy some things for themselves. In other words, if someone can usually afford a thing worth 10 000 roubles, before the New Year this person will make an effort to buy something for 20 000 roubles. Sales are shifting to a more expensive segment. Fashion trends are various. However, all things, which are beautiful, should find their wearers.
“Beautiful” - What do you mean by it?
Everything should be expensive and there should be a lot of everything. In other words, “no” to constraint and “no” to reserve in the field of jewellery. We are parting with this and trying to explain to people that there should be special jewels for every dress, for every evening and for every occasion. If this will happen with us, this will be good; there will be beautiful people pleasant to look at.
Aidyn Chavlan Erdogan, Zen Diamonds:
Emeralds, sapphires and rubies are in keen demand. Items with these gems are selling well on the eve of the New Year. Of course, diamonds are always in the first place, and this period is not an exception. Exclusive articles, masterpieces of jewellery and expensive adornments are also selling briskly. Before the New Year, they are selling better than in any other time.
Next year we want to increase the number of exclusive and expensive adornments in our Russian shops. Lately, the Russians became well versed in trends, and exclusive items and designers’ articles attract increased attention of buyers. Russian buyers also like regular things presented as adornments, as for example, diamond encrusted pens or a diamond tie. They often ask for watches with diamonds.
Tatyana Perfilova, Moscow Jewellery Plant
On the New Year’s Eve, we often sell those things, which lay idle during the whole year and which people just watched. We have expensive products received in September and sold only now. In other words, people are as a rule inclined to buy an expensive gift for an outstanding date. Brooches, including those with diamonds, are inevitably asked for in the period between our two “jolting” holidays – the New Year and 8 March. If a man wants to make a present, he very often chooses a brooch. Because to choose a ring, one has to know its exact size, and to choose earrings, one has to be prudent about the face type and appurtenant things. Brooches are universal. This type of decoration will virtually fit any attire – an evening dress or an office costume.
Diamonds will be in vogue in the next season. It seems that this is classics, but classics is changing with time. The “hoops”, for example, are also classics, but now there are new hoops of unusual beauty. They were, are and will be bought. They are worn in multitudes, and our women like such jewellery very much. “Single” gems may also surprise. Do you remember, for instance, those “small roses” worn by our grandmas in their ears? They were not only cancelled from production, but they are included in our collections and we are selling them and selling them a lot. I am surprised at young girls coming to our stores and asking for exactly such earrings! They cannot be persuaded to take something else, they say, “I want exactly this thing!” When she puts them on, you get impression she was born with them.
Nickolay Johanson, Jewellery Factory Junaid:
Before the New Year, people buy presents worth from one hundred dollars to infinity. There is no clear trend; everything depends on how much a person can spend.
Designer-made wedding rings will be in vogue, since young people seek for geometry, strict facets and they want men’s and women’s rings to be similar in design. Pearls ranging from 10 to 12 mm, that is expensive pearls, will also be fashionable.
Vassiliy, APL Diamond:
Before the New Year, we are selling more standard and classic adornments with single 0.20-carat stones.
Next year, people will certainly buy classic things, carat weighing rings, as well as “hoops”, both of classic and new, unusual types.
Anna Tishinsky, Rough&Polished – Moscow, Sokolniky
