Quite recently, diamond-encrusted cellular phones and notebooks as well as cars inlaid with gold and Swarovski crystals were on everyone’s lips viewed upon as moneybags’ freaks. However, this segment of the jewelry and diamond market is developing at a brisk pace finding more and more partisans among the largest marketers. Not so long ago, Maria Sharapova, a Russian world tennis star, presented a range of iced-out Canon cameras, while still earlier she got a gift from Rio Tinto Diamonds herself, a camera featuring an Argyle pink diamond studded “M” charm on it. Watches, mobile phones and other electronic devices carrying diamonds are the newest and promising field of business for jewelers, Rio Tinto experts believe.
ABI Research forecasts that revenues from luxury branded cellular handsets will exceed $11 billion in 2009 and $43 billion in 2013. This presents an opportunity for jewelers to add these devices to their product line. Research director Kevin Burden said it would be a logical step for jewelers. “From the perspective of handset manufacturers, a luxury mobile phone does not simply mean a new handset model, it represents a meaningful strategic approach to increased brand equity,” he said. ABI found out that luxury brands are including handsets into their product range because they are an important symbol of social status.
Fawaz Gruosi, a prominent jeweler, was a trail blazer in new mobile technologies, writes an observer of the Pyatnitsa, a supplement to the Vedomosty daily. He was the first to show that a “celly” may demonstrate the well-being of its owner in no worse a way than a tourbillon watch or a heart-cut diamond necklace. But after making as few as 20 Ericsson-based mobile phones de Grisogono, Gruosi, being a very perspicacious businessman, dropped this business entirely. On the other hand, Nokia picked up the idea putting on the market Virtu – a sample of mass luxury product.
To add to this product even more “exclusiveness” – an unusual quality for supermarkets – manufacturers started to “dedicate” new models to various race cars, including Porsche 911. The next was Motorola, which in team with Dolce & Gabbana made a MOTORAZR V3i handset enclosed in a gold and silver case bearing the fashion brand logo on its flip cover and featuring a special ringtone, MP3 player and a 1.23 megapixel digital camera. Currently they hit the market with “a more luxurious version” of this handset enhanced already with two megapixels, two displays and graced with gold and snakeskin.
Giorgio Armani also did not stay aloof from the band-wagon fashion: the designer teamed up with Samsung to release a super slim handset looking a bit larger than a credit card in size.
Recently, Dior presented a line of mobile phones of its own make. The Dior Phone handset was designed in partnership with French company Modelabs. Currently, there are several versions of this phone on the market: Dior Sapphire Crystal graced with black, white, silver, red and pink sapphires; Dior Diamond Sapphire Crystal, the most expensive black-diamond version (640 stones of VS clarity, FG color and classic jewelry cut). In September, another model will go on sale – Dior Rubber, this time with rubber bands of black, white, red and blue colors.
The Euroset Company, an exclusive rights owner of all the mono-brand Vertu boutiques on the territory of the Russian Federation, launched a boutique in Novosibirsk in the beginning of September. Its opening cost the company €350,000, said Irina Burova, Luxury and Vertu Project Manager at Euroset.
“This is the sixth boutique in Russia and the first in Siberia. Then, it is the first boutique in Russia tailored to the new style, New Age. We put a lot of our hopes on this store. I believe this is the most beautiful boutique in Novosibirsk,” RIA Novosti, a Russian information agency, quotes Ms. Burova as saying. Evgeny Chichvarkin, the then owner of the largest cellular retailer in Russia, was the main guest at the presentation.
The Vertu Company, a subsidiary of the Nokia Holding, was established in 1998 in Great Britain and in 2002 released its first model. Vertu phones are made of precious materials, assembled manually and represented in 50 countries worldwide. Before the mono-brand Vertu boutique in Novosibirsk there was only one authorized dealer of this trademark there – the “Emperor” luxury boutique, reminds the NGS, a Novosibirsk publication.
The boutique at Vokzalnaya Magistral will showcase all the range of this British trademark including the €300,000 worth Vertu Cobra phone. This cell phone is the last unsold handset of the eight pieces manufactured by British artists together with French jewelry house Boucheron.
Two of the eight phones happened to be in Russia and, according to Evgeny Chichvarkin, both “settled” in Siberia. “The first of them was sold to a customer from Lesosibirsk and the second was taken to the new boutique in Novosibirsk,” he said.
However, if the “regular” product range displayed at the Vertu boutique is to be considered, then, according to the impressions of the correspondent of the above publication, one may distinguish four price groups of phones. The most “inexpensive” sample in the collection – a piece representing the Vertu Constellation series – will cost RUR 168,000 to a customer. According to Evgeny Chichvarkin, the cell phones of the Constellation series turn to be the most popular among the Russians. The boutique also features the price brackets from RUR 250,000 to 300,000; form RUR 600,000 to 700,000; and from RUR 2 million to 2.5 million per handset. The price of a phone depends on the materials used to make and embellish it. “Ordinary” Constellation handsets expose sapphire glasses, steel hulls, ceramic keys and back-panel leather coatings, whereas pieces belonging to the most expensive series boast gold hulls and diamonds.
The Vertu mobile phones have very conservative functionality: a two-megapixel camera, Bluetooth and a phone directory for 1,000 numbers. According to Evgeny Chichvarkin, the Vertu phone is not a technical device, but an image element similar to jewelry or expensive watches. “One of our woman clients in Moscow has 13 Vertu handsets to suit the color of her clothes and bags. Some buy iPhones for work and Vertu phones as adornments,” says Evgeny Chichvarkin.
As assessed by Euroset operators, currently there are several hundred owners of genuine Vertu handsets in Novosibirsk.
However, the sales forecast offered by Alexey Popov, Executive Director of OOO Euroset-Novosibirsk, together with Evgeny Chichvarkin is considered as very bold by the publication. “The Vertu boutique in Novosibirsk will cover all the cities in Siberia since no other openings are planned behind the Urals in the nearest time. And this makes about 10,000 customers and Novosibirsk residents are one half of them,” Euroset top executives say.
The plans of Euroset were commented by Olga Sityayeva, Director and co-owner of the “Emperor” luxury boutique. “I would say that five thousand clients is an exaggerated number. I think that Novosibirsk is not ready for mono-brand luxury sales outlets – affluent Novosibirsk inhabitants are reluctant to show off luxury. This is where they differ from wealthy people in other provinces of Siberia. And Vertu is first of all a way to stress one’s status externally. Most of our clients act as connoisseurs and do not buy “gaudy” things, but prefer unique items. For instance platinum watches of a certain trademark, which cannot be distinguished from regular watches by a layman,” Olga Sityayeva said.
According to Denis Vokhmin, a brand manager of Porsche Tsentr Novosibirsk, a benchmark estimate of the Novosibirsk luxury market capacity proves that such goods are regularly bought in the city by no more than 1,000 people (while the city population is about one and a half million).
On this background the traditionally ambitious plans of Euroset look as not quite feasible. At the same time, our post-Soviet citizens’ passion to look more expensive as they really are gives ground to believe that demand for the cheapest models will be steady corroborating the metropolitan statistics once again, the NGS concludes. It is noteworthy that recently Euroset was bought by Alexander Mamut. His attitude toward his network’s promotion of luxury cell phones is so far unknown.
There comes a new breeze in the world of automobile fashion – jewelers got engaged in car tuning. Now the owners of gem-studded cars have a chance to compare not abstract notions like vehicle response, but quite tangible values – carats, the Za Rulem Magazine writes.
To grace transport vehicles with precious gems and metals to emphasize the owner’s high status is an ancient artifice. It is sufficient to take a look at royal carriages of the Golden Age. Modern presidential escorts move around in faceless “Pullmans,” while the business of encrusting private transport moved into the grass root masses, as one may say. Into the very affluent masses, to be true.
The Swarovski factory has been growing semi-finished products in the Austrian City of Wattens from 1913. Artificial crystals of super transparent crystal glass possess clarity which is 12,000 times higher than that of regular glass.
Wealthy Americans were the patriarchs of automotive incrustation. Today such tuning is normal for silk-stocking districts around the world. The Russian capital saw only the advent of the first fashion wave saddled by several workshops bold enough to do it. But to inlay the owner’s name with crystals on the radiator grill or to embellish some car body parts would be a too simple thing. Tuning artists went further combining their art with aerography.
An oddball composition in diamond glitter attracts women’s attention like a night beacon. No surprise that the major part of jewelry upgrade fans consists of women. Although exceptions occur – those belong to men of artistic professions or burdened with fame. Even politicians are not squeamish at such tuning. All of them have only two traits in common – non-trivial attitude to their own image and financial opulence. The latter, of course, plays a decisive role.
And finally, computers. Exclusive Ego Lifestyle notebooks are made in uniform style and shape, but decorated differently. Ego Diamond, Ego Platinum and Otazu Ego Diamond are graced with scattered diamonds and some of their elements are of white gold; gold and silver were used in finishing the new series of the Galaxy Collection. The notebooks are based on a single-core AMD Turion processor with an 80M chipset, Bluetooth 2.0 and WiFi connectivity.
