All of us have long been accustomed to hear "Made in Italy" and how jewelry sellers offering their merchandise proudly say: "Italian design." As is known, Italy accounts for 60% to 80% of the world’s gold jewelry production. This country is recognized as the undisputed trendsetter in jewelry art, where many ancient traditions are free to survive to this day and where Italian artisans, being experts in the field of jewelry, know how to make it. Demand for Italian design has never been low.
Italy, as the world’s leader in jewelry output, is processing 270 tons of gold annually, although the country itself produces only 100 kg. Its major jewelry centers are concentrated in the country’s north, in Valenza, Po, Vicenza, Florence, Arezzo, and Milan, and also in the south, in Palermo; besides, there are many small workshops scattered across the country. Two-thirds of jewelry goods made in Italy are intended for export, 30% find a ready sale inside the country and among tourists. Of course, gold consumption in the future will be primarily pegged to the level of gold prices.
Ancient jewelers worked to complete the orders of pharaohs and emperors, and by the 18th century jewelry making in Italy was gradually shifted to factories. It was the jewelry market which turned into one of the fastest growing segments of retail trade in the country’s north. A few of old-school goldsmiths were able to pass on their inherited jewelry secrets to save their family workshops for centuries, weathering all the trials and times of crisis, and today these jewelry companies celebrate their 100th anniversaries.
As a result of such a long ascent of jewelry crafts, the most pretentious jewelry shows used to be held in Italy. The country attracts all kind of jewelers and manufacturers from around the globe. Trade shows have become a solid platform for cooperation of Italian goldsmiths and a guarantee of successful work for the whole year to come.
It is at the jewelry exhibitions in Italy that one may find off-beat accessories, the most recent collections developed by famous designers, very expensive jewelry, works of old masters and just a huge selection of “expensive flow-line goods.”
Despite the introduction of modern techniques in the jewelry making, Italy is still trying to retain small workshops where jewelry is hand-made. Demand for unique jewelry pieces produced by talented goldsmiths will never subside. As a rule, these works find their way to rich people’s collections, so that mainstream consumers usually have no chance even to have a look at them.
Today, the jewelry market in Europe, as elsewhere, is riding the wave of another renaissance displaying since last December a noticeable increase in demand for jewelry and first of all for high-end goods - for jewelry graced with diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds, which are called the stones of the first group.
Any successive exhibition in Vicenza is sure to become the most important event in the life of every Italian designer and goldsmith. Each year, this elegant and noisy show pleases its visitors with something new, interesting and unusual. The exhibition center area usually occupied to 100% is a guarantee that participants will derive the most efficiency from the goals they pursue; the show offers a chance to have an in-depth vision of sales markets, to find and establish personal contacts with partners, to form one’s own range of products and develop a pricing concept. For 60 years, Vicenza has been running exhibitions three times a year, VicenzaOro in January, Vicenza Charm in May and Vicenza Choice in September. Offering an area of over 70 thousand square meters the place attracts up to 1,500 jewelry companies of which nearly 1000 - Italian.
The second most popular jewelry show is famous Chibimart in Milan, which is held twice a year, in May and November, at the Fieramilano Exhibition Center, where since 1995 more than 150 companies display their goods on an area of 4 thousand square meters, one third of them from abroad, mostly from Asia, which proves that this market has no limits. Spring exhibitions are dedicated to summer fashion, and autumn exhibitions to winter fashion.
Macef, another regular Italian exhibition launched in 1964, takes place twice a year in the same venue in Milan, and attracts up to 80,000 visitors who have an opportunity to get sight of 2000 stands.
Today, exhibitions are needed primarily for those who want to earn money and gain prominence. To reach both targets you have to sell. But to sell, you should be able to display. Most of those who take part in exhibitions confide that for the first time they dared to show their goods they were driven more by self-assertion rather than by necessity or prudence. Any exhibition is a very expensive pleasure, even for well-known firms with a good standing. But for veteran jewelry managers taking part in an exhibition is the most important element of marketing, a versatile and highly remunerative business tool. Every self-respecting Italian designer joins annual exhibitions, showing his or her products and obtaining a guarantee of success in return. For world jewelry experts and analysts large-scale exhibitions appear to be the best opportunity to get in touch with the industry in its concentrated form and have a foretaste of trends taking shape in the economy.
Veronica Novoselova, Rough&Polished correspondent in Italy
