It is assumed that latest fashion trends are not too vital for the mass-market segment. However, the players of the Russian provincial jewelry market point out that their buyers are turning more informed. “Now they appraise design relevance, gold quality and gems quality. Previously, our buyers were concerned only with jewelry quality, but today they pay attention to novelties. The concept of “jewelry fashion” came to the market of Novosibirsk,” says Natalya Sokolova, CEO of the Russky Yuvelir Jewelry Network in Novosibirsk.
As before, traditional tastes reign in the “crowd-market”. Chains, crosses and classic pendants are sales leaders.
Nevertheless, this conservative market has lately been influenced by the world jewelry fashion. For instance, buyers’ interest towards gemstones is growing. “Color gemstones are popular today and this was not so a year or two ago. Adornments contain bright color inserts of natural semi-precious and synthetic stones. Widespread are blue and chamois topaz, aquamarine, dyed zirconium imitating sapphire or emerald,” says Vitaly Vitukhin, General Manager of Adalit, a Novosibirsk jewelry factory. “Jewelry pieces with small diamonds, fianites and blue topazes are selling very well, while amethyst and chrysolite adornments are bought at a bit slower rate,” adds Irina Buravleva, a senior goods manager of Adamas, a jewelry network. “Jewelry is now close to bijouterie in its design,” sums up Tatyana Semenova, CEO of Almazny Dom jewelry boutiques in Novosibitrsk. “As with premium gold, one comes across combinations of various types of gold, gems, etc. in the mass segment. Evidently, the time has come for the market to get mature and people are now more open to oriflamme and audacious models.”
Red gold is particularly popular among other precious metals in the mass-market. “White gold jewelry pieces do not exceed 15% as compared with those made of red gold,” Irina Buravleva points out. However, the white gold share is gradually expanding. “In the mid-price segment people mainly ask for white gold stamped 585 since it is matched in price with similarly hallmarked red gold,” says Lyudmila Grishina, a senior sales clerk of the Moscow Jewelry Plant. Silver remains to be popular.
It is easy to notice that mass consumers’ tastes are not so much different from requests set forth by clients of expensive boutiques. May be the difference is that the role of color diamonds and expensive gemstones is played by other, cheaper jewels. However, in both cases the color palette fashion of gems is styled by jewelry houses. This winter, according to the majority of jewelry marketers, in vogue are cognac and yellow color diamonds.
One of the dominant trends is a fancy for chains. Curious enough, particularly cherished are large and clumpy chains borrowed from the 1980s. Today the chains are playing various roles: worn per se, as fixtures for pendants and as decorative belts.
In broad terms, experts poled by Russian mass media agree in one thing: along with classic things there is a fashion for avant-gardist jewelry adornments and items associated with ethnic and folk themes.
“Last summer, in vogue were weighty adornments both in bijouterie and in jewelry,” says Tatyana Pozdnyayeva, Design Director of Russkiye Samotsvety, the largest Russian jewelry company. “Many of them remain of current interest like, for example, trinkets in African style with bright ethnic drawing patterns as well as subtly fragile brooches and bracelets of white gold and insect-shaped gems. However, platinum and white gold jewelry pieces with various inserts are at the peak of vogue this winter.”
According to her, diamonds were somehow shifted to the back burner. “Now the “mixture” style is reigning, in other words a congery of incongruous. Gold jewelry pieces may be encrusted with combinations of several stones – precious, semi-precious gems and plain glass all at once. Such inserts may have different finish: cut and cabochoned, that is smooth as lollipops. But the quartet of gold, glass, wood and steel is considered the pattiest. Generally, the more non-traditional materials are used in an adornment, the more oriflamme and modern it looks.”
On the eve of New Year balls, Western jewelry companies are getting afoot expecting a surge in demand for large-size adornments. In the first place, the most asked for will be the so-called “miniature crowns” or tiaras, the “Vedomosti-Pyatnitsa” reports.
Today these feminine jewelry adornments are once again popular. Jewelry houses include them into their new collections. Auction houses put on sale old-time pieces.
Jean Ghika, Head of Jewelry Department of Bonhams, a British auction house, explains the growth of tiara popularity by lifestyle changes: “Many people discovered particular romanticism in events calling upon such adornments.”
According to experts, today tiaras are most often worn by brides. However, Geoffrey Munn, the author of the book “Tiaras: A History of Splendor”, affirms that “nowadays they are not rare in various situations when the “white tie” is mentioned in the dress code.” For example, tiaras may be worn at full-dress embassy receptions or at ball parties.
“Japanese and Russian buyers are bent on tiaras because they love this tie with their noble past,” says Beatrice de Plinval, curator of Chaumet’s Museum. “The Russians associate tiaras with the tsarist epoch and the Japanese perceive them as a symbol of the European jewelry history.” De Plinval says that tiaras are often ordered by Japanese brides dreaming of a European-style wedding. Jewelry houses offer tiaras from modern collections. For instance, this year’s line Delices de Cartier features a model made of white gold with diamonds, rubies, sapphires and semi-precious color gems. The more austere Frisson de Chaumet employs only classic white diamonds. For some years now, Chopard is making tiaras of white gold with 678 diamonds for winners of the “Miss Europe” beauty contest. It is noteworthy that pageant adornments are also addressed by entirely new brands. Thus, the last Leviev collection displayed a platinum tiara inlaid with diamonds.
Among designer novelties, one may point up the idea to blend “pleasant with useful”: for instance, a jewelry piece may also serve as a perfume flask or as a lipstick container.
Collaboration between jewelers and perfumers is a rather widespread phenomenon. Designer Margherita Missoni presented an unusual adornment entitled Aqua Сharm Necklace, which exhales the fragrance of Missoni Aqua. The necklace is flaunting several pendants, one of which is filled with solid perfume. The Aqua Charm Necklace has been released in a limited number of copies and timed to coincide with the 2007-2008 festive season.
Many jewelry brands (Boucheron, Mauboussin, Solange Azagury-Partridge and others) have made the release of fragrances an integral part of their business.
Telling the tale about precious and semi-precious stones in aroma languages is a recent fashionable trend. Amethyst, which found its reflection in a wide variety of perfumes, happens to be an indisputable leader of the year passed, says luxury-info.ru.
Diamond is yet another gem arising vivid interest not only in jewelers but also in perfume makers. Singer Beyonce Knowles has become the face of the new fragrance “Diamonds” belonging to the Emporio Armani line. In a dedicated commercial, the singer performs her version of “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”
The longest stride of all was made by jewelry designer Solange Azagury Partridge, who introduced the scent “Stoned”, which contains, besides traditional ingredients (like overtones of rose, jasmine, vanilla and musk), diamond dust.
Out of collections highlighted by mass media in November - December we should first mention the special New Year line of Chopard, replenished from year to year by this jewelry house. The Snowflake Necklace exhibited in 2006 is an artful congery of seven tender white gold lozenges encrusted with diamonds and sapphires. It resembles a star pattern of snowflakes. Now, continuing the theme of aeriality and magic splendor Chopard introduces a magnificent fine-drawn pendant of snowflakes and starlets on a chain strewn with similarly tiny flakes. The skillfully arranged diamonds enclosed in a tender framework and enchased in white gold form a constellation of snowflakes.
Cartie displayed a postscript to its collection Inde Mysterieuse. Earlier there was a presentation of a series of haute joaillerie pieces, which were made in one copy not to be repeated. These things – a number of necklaces, large-size hair adornments and brooches – exist in one issue and the majority of them are already sold, says the “Kommersant-Weekend”.
The second part of Inde Mysterieuse also consists of precious things, which will have their continuation in the nearest time; in other words, separate directions will give origin to separate small collections. These adornments are less pompous and more wearable – many of them may be attributed to cocktail things, whereas the above-mentioned haute joaillerie pieces fall within the family or museum status. The line of arabesques, the line of paisleys and the line of “Bengal tigers” (which, incidentally, very much resemble the legendary panthers of Cartier) may be attributed to classic things. All the adornments will be available at Cartier stores in the nearest time. The adornments of all the lines are made of platinum and encrusted with white, yellow and brown diamonds (with the only exception of “tiger” pieces containing yellow gold, onyxes and emeralds). One of the main diamond cutting methods is the Briolette cut – flippant, jocose and sunshiny. Of course, says the weekly, all these classic lines of Inde Mysterieuse come after certain commercial purposes, but on the other hand, these things, ingenious and spiritual, allow us to be closer to the high ways of genuine haute joaillerie.
One ballet story has it that adornments displayed in the window of the New York – based store of Van Cleef & Arpels inspired George Ballanchine to create the ballet “Jewels”. The first night of “Jewels” took place forty years ago and Van Cleef & Arpels sponsored the performance. Later on, new productions of this ballet on other stages went along without Van Cleef & Arpels’ participation. Thus, the Russian production of “Jewels” (its opening night was at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1999) was sponsored by Cartier. However, this year due to this ballet’s anniversary Van Cleef & Arpels not only facilitated its way to the Covent Garden stage in London, but also created a special collection dedicated to this event entitled “Ballet Precieux”.
This collection, as is the usual case with Van Cleef & Arpels, is very clearly structured being divided into four parts, each of them bearing its own name: “Ballet”, “Emerald”, “Ruby” and “Diamond”. Altogether, there will be 80 jewels in this collection. As is customary to Van Cleef & Arpels, the collection adornments will not be made public all at once, but will be manufactured gradually – in the course of several months, says the “Kommersant-Weekend”.
The best adornments of “Ballet Precieux” are styled in the same manner as Balanchine’s ballet “Jewels”, in a neo-classic fashion. These are very rhythmic and at the same time very pompous jewelry pieces marked by certain heaviness chrestomathic to the brand, in which one can find reminiscences of Van Cleef & Arpels traditional themes (couture and flora). Musical themes are also present in the collection. Thus, for instance, the “Emerald” line contains a necklace entitled “Holy Spring”, while the “Diamond” part is represented by the necklaces “Neva” and “Swan Lake”. The majority of jewelry is represented by sets – a necklace is often completed with a ring or earrings. The manufacturer used white gold, platinum, white and color diamonds, Columbian (meaning old stock, since the greater part of Columbian mines are presently closed) emeralds and Burmese rubies. In other words, the usual material classics to which Van Cleef & Arpels is so accustomed.
