During the last year, the information flows of the Russian and foreign mass media writing about jewelry notably drifted closer to each other. The Russian media is paying more and more attention to news about foreign brands, which are ever more eagerly coming to Russia. This happens amid apprehensions caused by possible recession on the market of luxury goods. Buyers from Russia, Russian habitués of boutiques and auctions start to be viewed as one of the last bastions on the way to sales slowdown.
Evidently, it is also possible to say that by now a certain “Russian pool” of jewelers took its shape, to which there is a good reason to attribute in the first instance Chopard (Caroline Gruosi- Scheufele), Steven Webster, deGrisogono (Fawaz Gruosi), and Jacob & Co. (Jacob Arabo). Other prestigious jewelers also do not neglect buyers from Russia. These are Bvlgari, Cartier, Chanel, Boucheron and others. Recently, this list grew longer due to other added sellers, like for instance the Harry Winston trademark.
The manufacturers of de luxe goods found in Russia not only grateful buyers, but a genuine source of inspiration, the Vedomosty.Friday weekly writes.
Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele, Chopard’s Co-President, who produced the Pushkin Collection of female watches and adornments after her visit to Moscow as early as 1999, should be viewed as the trail blazer on this “Russian” way. According to Caroline, her first impression from the Cathedral of Saint Basil the Blessed was so vivid that coming out to the Red Square she was petrified in admiration. Back home, Gruosi-Scheufele perused many jewelry art books and discovered that the most beautiful, in her opinion, form of the cathedral’s dome had never been used in jewelry design. The collection was named after Caroline’s favorite Russian poet to commemorate his 200th anniversary concurrent with the collection release date.
This same cathedral turned out to be no less impressive for Rolf Schneider. When in 2005 the president and co-owner of Ulysse Nardin was negotiating a history-accented watch show in the Kremlin, he made up his mind to time the event with issuing the namesake collection, “It dawned upon me to produce a watch with an image of the Saint Basil the Blessed Cathedral. I shot it at all angles, brought the pictures to Switzerland and my craftsmen manufactured a blue enameled clock-face with its image on it.” Incidentally, as a follow-up to the Kremlin Collection series limited to 30 items (still under development), Schneider plans to produce a time-piece dedicated to Saint Petersburg.
French jewelry house Cartier released even the lesser number of Santos 100 Saint Basil models bearing the same favorite symbol of Russia – only 25 pieces within their classic-style collection Santos. However, it was also timed to coincide with the historic jewelry exhibition in the Assumption Belfry in the Kremlin. They chose the same color for the clock-face, but their lasurite was this time incrusted with a fragment of the Saint Basil the Blessed image in pure gold.
Nevertheless, if some are forthright in interpreting the images of famous landmarks, others refer to the Russian theme via a color palette and names of items. Ever since his second show in the Kremlin, Swiss jeweler Gilbert Albert ideated an adornment, which could come near the Kremlin stars in their beauty, if not outshine them. So a necklace named “Red Square” was first presented to public on Gilbert Albert’s stand in the Manege at the Moscow World Fine Art Fair: a jewelry piece of 15 oval-shaped Burmese scarlet mat rubies weighing 454 carats impressed many people, however, as much as its price set at several million roubles.
If you supplement the list of “Russian” things with Louis Vuitton’s pointe-shaped charm-pendant (a tribute to the Bolshoi Theatre), Cartier’s orthodox crosses “Vladimir” and “Olga” and Patek Philippe’s Sky Moon watch bearing a map fragment of the star sky over Moscow (they will be put on sale this autumn), you may have a pricy collection because many of these things have been issued in limited series and often are sold in Russia only.
The 5th Moscow World Fine Art Fair already mentioned above (Manege, May 27 – June 2), where jewelry occupied a very prominent place, turned into one of the central mundane events in the capital during the past month and got sufficiently wide media exposure.
Traditionally, this event is joined by famous jewelry brands Bvlgari, Gilbert Albert, and Van Cleef&Arpels. According to the RBC daily, there appeared new names in the jewelry section of the fair. This year one could see here the artworks of such brands as Harry Winston, Mark Toto and Wallace Chan. Fashion house Chanel came to the Fine Art Fair for the second time displaying two jewelry collections. Their first collection called “18 Place Vendome” was timed to opening Chanel’s flagship boutique in the Vendome Square in 2007. Their second collection, “Les Essentiels,” was introduced in Russia for the first time. It is based on the largest stones in the history of the Chanel House. In connection with Chanel’s participation in the fair, its Technical Director Georges Amer gave an interview to the RBC daily, in which he not only told about the history of this house, but dwelled in detail on the collection brought to Moscow:
“We would not like the vogue for Chanel adornments be dependent on the vogue for materials or stones. Because Chanel’s jewelry is in the first place valued for its creative design… We would like to show absolutely all range of materials to our women clients. And we want them to adore our jewelry pieces for their style… We are not following trends, we are creating trends.”
The Kultura weekly takes a special notice of the artworks presented by Wallace Chan. The weekly writes that this Eastern conjurer and dreamer dazzled the public with his titanium earrings “Man and Woman” studded with diamonds, enormous pink volute pearls and kunzite. The combination of pastel pink pearls with transparent violate stones produced an impression of cosmic extravaganza.
Russian jewelers were represented by Smolensk Diamonds and Jewellery Theatre, where Irina Dorofeyeva and Maxim Voznesenski make absolutely wonderful and surprisingly modern things in terms of design. According to the Kommersant daily, dress designer Igor Chapurin supported the domestic manufacturers: he not only was photographed in the hall of Smolensk Diamonds, but agreed to make his own collection for this jewelry house. Maxim Voznesenski’s exhibition received coverage in the mass-circulation federal press. Jewellery Theatre too was noticed due to its first charitable auction on May 28; all its proceeds will be used to “maintain the Russian jewelry art” (exactly so, although in a very and very all-rounded way they say in Jewellery Theatre, writes the Kommersant-Weekend).
In early June, Moscow was visited by Jacob Arabo. His stay in Moscow, during which he managed to celebrate his birthday, left some trace both in the print media and on the TV screen: “All at once,” an NTV program, showed Jacob the Jeweler together with American actress Eva Longoria, who accompanied him to Moscow (she was starring in the “Desperate Housewives” TV series). The Moscow TsUM Department Store started selling new Jacob & Co. watches. According to the Kommersant-Weekend, Arabo brought not only watches, but also a new Russian muse: from the summer of 2008 Natalia Vodianova, a mega star in the world of design and charity, appeared as Jacob & Co.’s face.
The style of Jacob & Co. cannot be called intricate, writes the edition. Their watches are simple like children’s toys and bright like a baby rattle. Large-size watch-cases, diamonds of all known cuts stacked in six, eight, eighty eight rows plus bright-colored watchbands plus catchy names of watch models. All the time pieces made by Jacob Arabo serve a wonderful illustration to the Russian folk’s catchpenny phrase “Life panned out.” His watches are like a caviar sandwich. Not a simple sandwich, but a gold sandwich, where there is no bread, but only two layers of caviar – one black and the other red.
On June 5, at the Baccarrat Restaurant Arabo presented a jewelry collection produced by the Jacob & Co. brand. Mr. Arabo decided to surprise the Moscow public not only with Ms. Vodianova, the Kommersant writes. He raised the bon ton degree bringing actress Eva Longoria and her husband Tony Parker, a basketball player. While in the United States, Mrs. Longoria’s fame is in its peak, many people in Russia just do not know, who she is. At this party, even Tony Parker was a more popular character, than his wife.
As is known, jewelry house Chopard is a partner of the Cannes Film Festival and due to this during the most prominent European cinematographic event this company every year turns out to be an often news making source. This happens at the traditional Chopard party preceded by prize awards to young actors and at the AmFAR charity auction (run by Sharon Stone in the course of 15 years). To counter Sharon Stone, Elton John threw his own benefit night Amber Fashion in Monaco this year. The party featured Chopard jewelry. Besides, Chopard jewelry prevails on the red carpet – from the festival’s opening day on.
This year in Cannes there emerged a first-ever Russian pavilion, where a Russian-style party was launched. The Prime Concept Club and Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele were partners to the party and Fawaz Gruosi was among its guests. By hearsay, the jewelry houses’ financial participation was not overwhelming, the Kommersant-Denghi weekly writes, although the repute of Chopard and that of Ms. Gruosi-Scheufele should have attracted benevolent attention of international stars to this event.
On May 25, the jewelry house sponsored the L.U.C. Chopard Classic Weekend Rally, a traditional rally of old time cars. As reported by the Izvestia, the winners were awarded the main prize – super-accurate chronometers.
In Tiffany’s advertising strategy there also appeared a “Russian factor.” Not long before the Roland Garros tennis tournament (the French Open Tennis Championship) it was reported that the company signed a two-year contract with tennis player Maria Sharapova.
At the French Open Tennis Championship Sharapova played in 18-carat Tiffani gold earrings designed by Elsa Peretti of Tiffany & Сo.; Tiffani also attached jewels to the Nike dress, in which the Russian tennis player toured the Paris courts.
“Maria Sharapova is a longtime friend of Tiffany and a champion on and off the court,” said Linda Buckley, the company’s vice president. “It gives us great pleasure to accent her on-court look with earrings that epitomize both the quality of her championship play and Tiffany’s reputation for design excellence.”
For the next two years during each of the four Grand Slam Tennis events (the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US and Australian Open) the Russian player will wear Tiffany earrings that will be sold at Tiffany & Co. stores around the world.
Tiffany & Co. is the only foreign jewelry company, whose accounting reports are regularly covered by Russian information agencies. According to RosBusinessConsulting, the net profit of Tiffany & Co. Inc. in the first quarter of the 2008-2009 financial year (ending on April 30) was up 19% to USD64.4 million vs. USD54 million in the similar period last year. The sales for the reporting period grew 12% to USD668 million vs. USD595.7 million in the similar period last year.
The company’s spokesmen explain the successful financial results by increased sales in Europe and Asia.
The start of Harry Winston’s operations in Russia required placing special image-maintaining publications in the Russian mass media covering the top-echelon jewelry business. As the Kommersant-Weekend explained, this was because the Russians first discovered the watches made by Harry Winston and not their jewelry. We are just beginning to study the tastes of Russian clients, explained Suzie Corb, Marketing and Design Vice-President, to the “Kak Potratit,” a supplement to the “Vedomosti” daily. “Each of the jewelry pieces produced under the brand of Harry Winston is special. Please, do not think we are so pretentious. According to what we see, the Russians like and value the same things as any other of our clients. And the requirements of exquisite jewelry connoisseurs are similar all the world over: these people value top-level workmanship before everything else.”
So what is the secret of Harry Winston’s jewelry? In what way can it be described? It seems it is not that difficult, the Kommersant-Weekly says. On the one side, their jewelry is incredibly autocratic and sexy. On the other side, it is very romantic. On the third side, this is impeccable and divine jewelry classics, la divina. On the fourth side, it is legendary.
The name of Harry Winston is associated with great precious stones and exquisite taste for jewelry pieces worn at the Oscar ceremonies from the end of the 1940s. Harry Winston is Hollywood jewelry. The famous phrase “Diamonds are the girl’s best friends” was said exactly of Winston’s stones, not of someone else’s stones, the Kommersant-Weekend stressed.
“We are a high jewelry house without the ready-to-wear line. Our adornments are hand-made at our own workshop of our own materials – artworks which may be worn are produced in this way. Harry Winston was always seeking to make the setting more flexible and light, so a jewelry piece could look static. Not incidentally, his favorite dictum “If I could I would attach the diamonds directly to a woman’s skin” became a key principle of our work and we are striving to make something, which may be worn by a woman in any circumstances,” Susie Corb said.
