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Bling is no longer the thing at red carpet events.  Low key and subdued is the message A-List celebrities have been sending out for some time now. And, personally,  I think this couldn’t be better for our retailers.  What celebrities are wearing translate into understandable pieces that can easily be interepreted (at lower diamond weights and less tony price tags) into your customer’s wardrobes. And these divas, many whom I’ve watched for several years have, (except for a small few)  had a range of faux pas and now have all come into their own.  I realize that some of my editorial counterparts might not agree, wishing to see more stand out pieces but once again the red carpet was the stage for earrings, cuffs and right hand rings and a few spectacular yet more delicate necklaces.  Earrings are always a way to light up a women’s face and can easily be interpreted with varied collections you have in your stores. The cuff bracelets are perhaps harder to sell but are good stand out pieces to revolve a collection around. Buy one for impact.  When we finally saw necklaces they were choker length and we didn’t see too many but the styles we did see were breath-taking and less overwhelming than in the past.

I like this minimalism. It doesn’t say jewelry isn’t important; it says don’t let your jewelry wear you. 

My absolute favorite look actually featured a necklace worn by Kate Winslet who draped herself in Tiffany & Co.
 

As far as the entire look, Sandra Bullock has come a long way and not only got it right but should be on the best dressed list for a long time to come in her own Neil Lane exquisite drop earrings and diamond bracelet

Penelope Cruz look red hot in her red dress and platinum and double drop diamond earrings by Chopard

Demi Moore, ageless beauty complimented her flattering creamy peach confection of a gown with Van Cleef and Arpel jewels.

Charlize Theron  looked equally ravishing in her lilac lavender gown complimented by Harry Winston platinum and diamond cluster earrings and diamond bracelet

Maggie Gyllenhaal, always fashionable, wore Fred Leighton fabulous earrings and diamond, emerald and sapphire cuff.

Helen Mirren wore one of the best necklaces besides Kate Winslet, by Chopard as was her other jewelry of the evening.

Sarah Jessica Parker  accessories her Chanel gown with just the right accents: two spectacular Fred Leighton platinum and diamond bracelets

Rachel McAdams long Lorraine Schwartz antique style earrings also light up the night

As did the shoulder dusters by Fred Leighton that Carrie Mulligan wore.

Amanda Seyfried looked elegant and perfectly jewelry from her Lorraine Schwartz clip earrings to cuff bracelets.

Bling is no longer the thing at red carpet events.  Low key and subdued is the message A-List celebrities have been sending out for some time now. And, personally,  I think this couldn’t be better for our retailers.  What celebrities are wearing translate into understandable pieces that can easily be interepreted (at lower diamond weights and less tony price tags) into your customer’s wardrobes. And these divas, many whom I’ve watched for several years have, (except for a small few)  had a range of faux pas and now have all come into their own.  I realize that some of my editorial counterparts might not agree, wishing to see more stand out pieces but once again the red carpet was the stage for earrings, cuffs and right hand rings and a few spectacular yet more delicate necklaces.  Earrings are always a way to light up a women’s face and can easily be interpreted with varied collections you have in your stores. The cuff bracelets are perhaps harder to sell but are good stand out pieces to revolve a collection around. Buy one for impact.  When we finally saw necklaces they were choker length and we didn’t see too many but the styles we did see were breath-taking and less overwhelming than in the past.

I like this minimalism. It doesn’t say jewelry isn’t important; it says don’t let your jewelry wear you. 

My absolute favorite look actually featured a necklace worn by Kate Winslet who draped herself in Tiffany & Co.

As far as the entire look, Sandra Bullock has come a long way and not only got it right but should be on the best dressed list for a long time to come in her own Neil Lane exquisite drop earrings and diamond bracelet

Penelope Cruz look red hot in her red dress and platinum and double drop diamond earrings by Chopard

Demi Moore, ageless beauty complimented her flattering creamy peach confection of a gown with Van Cleef and Arpel jewels.

Charlize Theron  looked equally ravishing in her lilac lavender gown complimented by Harry Winston platinum and diamond cluster earrings and diamond bracelet

Maggie Gyllenhaal, always fashionable, wore Fred Leighton fabulous earrings and diamond, emerald and sapphire cuff.

Helen Mirren wore one of the best necklaces besides Kate Winslet, by Chopard as was her other jewelry of the evening.

Sarah Jessica Parker  accessories her Chanel gown with just the right accents: two spectacular Fred Leighton platinum and diamond bracelets

Rachel McAdams long Lorraine Schwartz antique style earrings also light up the night

As did the shoulder dusters by Fred Leighton that Carrie Mulligan wore.

Young Hollywood is making the grade before they ever fail a step. 

Anna Kendrick wore Kwiat but I particular liked the Edwardian-style ring.

Amanda Seyfried looked elegant and perfectly jewelry from her Lorraine Schwartz clip earrings to cuff bracelets.

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Bling is no longer the thing at red carpet events.  Low key and subdued is the message A-List celebrities have been sending out for some time now. And, personally,  I think this couldn’t be better for our retailers.  What celebrities are wearing translate into understandable pieces that can easily be interepreted (at lower diamond weights and less tony price tags) into your customer’s wardrobes. And these divas, many whom I’ve watched for several years have, (except for a small few)  had a range of faux pas and now have all come into their own.  I realize that some of my editorial counterparts might not agree, wishing to see more stand out pieces but once again the red carpet was the stage for earrings, cuffs and right hand rings and a few spectacular yet more delicate necklaces.  Earrings are always a way to light up a women’s face and can easily be interpreted with varied collections you have in your stores. The cuff bracelets are perhaps harder to sell but are good stand out pieces to revolve a collection around. Buy one for impact.  When we finally saw necklaces they were choker length and we didn’t see too many but the styles we did see were breath-taking and less overwhelming than in the past.

I like this minimalism. It doesn’t say jewelry isn’t important; it says don’t let your jewelry wear you. 

My absolute favorite look actually featured a necklace worn by Kate Winslet who draped herself in Tiffany & Co.

As far as the entire look, Sandra Bullock has come a long way and not only got it right but should be on the best dressed list for a long time to come in exquisite drop earrings and diamond bracelet

Penelope Cruz look red hot in her red dress and platinum and double drop diamond earrings by Chopard

Demi Moore, ageless beauty complimented her flattering creamy peach confection of a gown with Van Cleef and Arpel jewels.

Charlize Theron  looked equally ravishing in her lilac lavender gown complimented by Harry Winston platinum and diamond cluster earrings and diamond bracelet

Maggie Gyllenhaal, always fashionable, wore Fred Leighton fabulous earrings and diamond, emerald and sapphire cuff.

Helen Mirren wore one of the best necklaces besides Kate Winslet, by Chopard as was her other jewelry of the evening.

Sarah Jessica Parker  accessories her Chanel gown with just the right accents: two spectacular Fred Leighton platinum and diamond bracelets

Rachel McAdams long antique style earrings also light up the night

As did the shoulder dusters by Fred Leighton that Carrie Mulligan wore.

Young Hollywood is making the grade before they ever fail a step. 

Anna Kendrick wore Kwiat but I particular liked the Edwardian-style ring.

• 
  Gorgeous pic, Chris.

Recently, we had our assistant manager leave to pursue a career in education. We are desperate need to find  new, energetic, intelligent employees that can join our team. You would think that with all these recent jewelry chains going under, you would have jewelry sales associates knocking down the door. Where are these people?  Where are the poeple that want to pursue a career in jewelry sales? What is best way to recruit people? Do career sites like monster and careerbuilder work for our industry?

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  I now see what you mean by "bouncing truck", Travis. Pretty cool ... will it bounce with you in it, too? You are definitely not your typical jeweler

Many of the designers I spoke to in the small Couture and Design Lab sections of the show reported being happy with sales and the presence of retailers at the winter JANY show.  Personally,  I was glad to  seeing the congestion of buyers in the Design Lab section of the show where I thought there were many talented designers in an open setting that might be a bit confusing at first glance,  but didn’t stop retailers from writing orders or stopping by to get a better understanding. 
Designers/trends and collections that stood out during the show:

 -Kristin Hanson with her sea life inspired textures and motifs

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-Paul Morelli's bells are quite beautiful and I think that shape along with tassels are directional  for both earrings and pendants. As always his  three-dimensional floral designes are some of the best around, particularly in tri-tone colors and pink gold.

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-Raffaella Mannelli's wood and diamond/fancy colored sapphire pieces pretty much stole the show and it took me four tries until I could get into her booth; she was jam packed with retailers, which she later told me were not only from Tri-State area but Barcelona, Canada, Chicago and California.

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-While I do think the market is a bit over-saturated with color (pun intended), I  am still awed by the breathtaking stones of designers who have always used vibrant colors and one of a kind gems:  Suzy Landa, Erica Molinari, Ray Griffith's and Tresor.

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-I found stackable bangles to continue to be a strong trend and thought that there was as much of these in new variations as the wide cuff bracelets (we’ve been seeing) and potentially more salable. Also, popular an easy, the continuation of every conceivable, shapes, setting, motif, color combination, metal mixes for stackable rings

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-John Apel's blackened silver thin cuffs with 18K gold bezels of moonstones and other paler colors really popped and a stack of three to five is a great look and are not as delicate as bangles so you can start your customer off with one and move on to a collection that they could pile on.

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-Teardrop shapes continue to be the shape to watch and I found them in almost every collection, whether in gold or oversized pear shaped stones.

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 -I thought Anzie did a beautiful job with white topaz in all shapes.

- The stud trend also continues to go strong in a multitude of looks now and I saw some really easy to wear and eye catching looks at every company I've mentioned.

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     <!--[endif]-->I have now been seeing blackened everything for at least three years and while I know it took quite a long time to hit middle America, I think that way too many designers are doing it and that it definitely looks good when combined with high karat gold in more contemporary rather than the cross cultural looks we’ve been seeing so much of. If you are going to buy black, make sure it doesn’t look like it came from a bazaar.

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Captions

Paul Morelli bell earrings

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Paul Morelli floral cuff

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Erica Molinari colored stone pendants

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Kristin Hanson sea life inspired rough champagne diamond ring

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Kristin Hanson sea life inspired stud earrings

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Suzy Landa gemstone jewels

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John Apel moonstone pear shaped earrings

John Apel blackened silver cuffs with 18k gold and gemstones

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Dana*David stackable bangles

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Anzie white topaz pieces

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After two years of paying down debt and skipping family vacations, many Americans are cautiously planning to spend their tax refunds again. That’s according to a survey by the National Retail Federation, which found that about 43.9 percent of consumers expecting a refund this year would use the money to pay down debt, compared to 48.0 percent last year. (And if past behavior is any guideline, it will actually be higher, because people always tells pollsters they are going to pay down their debt first, but then go and splurge on a new TV.)

This is good news, not only because of the immediate boost it gives to retailers but because it’s more evidence that are Americans are really champing at the bit to consume again. So, get ready.

Sure, last year was no normal year, but start by going back and checking what lines and categories sold best last tax season to give you some ideas on what to stock up on.

You also want your store to be at its most alluring when those “bonus bucks” from Uncle Sam land. Experiment with your window displays to get your jewelry looking fresh and inviting.

Try investing a little more in advertising too, to keep your store and its offerings on people’s minds as they wait for that check. (If you want a guideline, use the 12-20 percent jump that general retail sales typically make in March-April compared with February). Two marketing campaigns you can run even before the last American taxpayer has filed his return are: a “Tax Day Layaway” sale for April 16 — any layaway gets 10 percent off the ticket price; And a “Tax-relief” sale. It’s not exactly logical, but offer to pay the sales tax on any sales made April 1 to 15. (For more good ideas, take a look at the Do You or Don’t You column we ran in last April’s edition of Instore, page 96).

And any brainstorms you have on tax-return season, feel free to add them here.

     Just think how different the jewelry industry would be if all of the stores looked exactly the same including the merchandise and prices. No matter where a customer goes, he or she will be able to purchase the same goods at the same price.

     Fortunately business is not like that. I am sure when you read that, you started thinking of how different your business is from the rest. When you do this, you are thinking of all of the competitive advantages you present to potential buyers. It may be price, reputation, or even a perception of an advantage that does not even exist. Whatever it is, competitive advantages are those things you do to set yourself apart. Sometimes we think they will help and it backfires. Sometimes we may stumble upon it by chance and just because you were at the right place at the right time, it falls into your lap.

      Living here in Hawai'i, the photography business is very competitive. Even the potential consumers feel that the new camera strapped around their neck makes them equivalent to a professional. It is kind of like the customer that asks you to just "solder this back together" and then adds, "I would do it myself, but..."

     From experience, a photographer can tell the difference between a good snapshot and nice photography. The person that takes the picture has trouble stepping back and looking at it subjectively. What does one in the photography industry do to create a competitive advantage? High dynamic range photography is on the rise. You may have seen it and not really understood what it is. On most lat model single reflex lens cameras, known as SLR cameras, there is a bracket setting that will allow you to take several consecutive shots at different exposures. The HDR photographer will take at least three shots. One overexposed, one underexposed and one just right. As always, the best exposure will have portions that are too dark to see detail  and other portions that are too bright. This is where the other exposures come in. If you take the the best exposed areas of all exposures and combine them, the final image will lack black shadows and white areas that are over exposed. The resulting image will have detail in all parts of the image.

     The above picture has the sun behind the top of the palm tree. If a person takes a photograph of this scene, the trees would simply be black silhouettes. Because this image was taken with five different exposures, there are no over exposed areas and not underexposed areas. The result may look like a painting, but if you were there looking at the scene with your eyes, you would be able to see all of the detail. The result is much more like what you see in real life. Here is another great example of the details HDR brings out in a photograph:

     Now you will be able to spot this trend in the photographic industry. It is much like CAD was in the jewelry industry a few years ago. There is no mistaking an HDR image when compared to a snapshot.

     What competitive advantage are you using to set yourself apart? What about your business?

There must be a mathematical equation that explains JA New York, which will have its last day at the Javitz Center tomorrow, March 2.

 It might just be that I’ve never been to the Jewelers of America’s winter show, but something odd is happening here. It appears:

(a) This show is more crowded with potential buyers than I was expecting.

(b) The smaller footprint has condensed the buyers into a smaller space.

(c) Some combination thereof.

Since I don’t have inside information on attendance or actual figures on purchasing, I will guess the correct answer is (c).

There was a wine show, a travel show, a food service show, and a copious coat check booth at the Javitz Center, but the milling about outside all these shows still didn’t add up to the crowds in the aisles at JA New York’s Winter Show yesterday and today.

I was disappointed at the spectrum of vendors. I toted my 26 year old daughter along as a marketing consultant, and we were both disappointed to see the vendors who did bother to show were bunching to the middle of the pack. If I removed the following items from most booths, they’d be empty:

(1) Wide cuff bracelets. In high carat gold, base metal, or some combination. Most of them have a slightly primitive aura, which is appealing.

(2) Larger semi-precious. Yawn. OK, call me a snob, but just because my name is Claire, I don’t want my clientele looking like they walked out of “Claire’s Boutique” accessory shop in the mall. I appreciate color, but my demographic will not spend hundreds on things that could be mistaken for paste. Ouch. Fun designs: yes, there were a few, but this niche is not for me.

I understand that lean times call for more reasonably priced demonstrative jewelry: large semi precious or even freshwater pearls fill the niche. If you sell this category well, JA New York foreshadows a big season of big, reasonably priced color.

(3) Black. Blackened metal, black rhodium, onyx, oxidized silver, even marcasite: black is HOT. In combination with unusual semi-precious gemstones or unusual cut semi-precious, black is the new black. It will be great this summer to balance the heat, and my guess is that blackened accents will be popular across the spectrum next fall and winter. Along with matte gold, you had better have some in your cases!

(4) Micropave and pave accents…not necessarily diamond, either. The trend is more toward larger open soft geometric fashion looks with micro-pave. Teardrop shaped earrings, soft ovals and ellipses abound.

(5) Wrap it up. Many booths featured designs that looked like wire wrapping, accented with bezel-set gems.  Mostly in bracelets, but there were rings and earrings, too.

Even designers who are famous for over-the-top work barely looked at the edge. I stopped by Boaz Kashi’s booth (www.boazkashi.com), and the edgy Israeli has taken his scale down a few notches. The craftsmanship though, is still divine. His work is infused with energy and stands out in a small show replete with “me too” looks.

Brooklyn’s own Kristin Hanson shows wonderful work as well. Vaguely vintage, subtly aquatic, with a wearable juxtaposition of scale…The nice thing about Hanson is the edginess (e.g. crab leg chain!) is classy. (www.kristinhansonjewelry.com). She’s got some unusual metals and fun designs for summer.

Two other trends of note: the creeping Asian aesthetic is taking a bigger toehold on the U.S. domestic market. I saw enamel pigs and Japanimation style jewelry that would not work in my demographic, but we need to prepare for an aesthetic shift. Don’t dismiss this, especially if you are an urban jeweler. You could wiggle yourself into a nice position with a loyal Asian clientele if you begin to respect their aesthetic today.

Also, I noticed a lot of bib necklaces. Big necklaces in hard shapes, almost like jewel armor. The dime store psychologist can’t help wondering what we are shielding ourselves from with this look. Personally I don’t like jewelry that ‘wears me’.  My daughter was attracted to these looks, and I’m guessing the 18-28 year old self-purchaser will be delighted.

The Yin to the Yang of bib necklaces are the gemstone-by-the-yard looks, a personal favorite of mine.

JA/NY lacks an attitude, unlike InStore’s upcoming Smart Show (Chicago’s Navy Pier April 24-26). JA/NY lacked an estate section. My 26 year-old daughter wanted to help me find showcase inventory from ‘bins’, but there were only a handful of estate sellers, and they were looking to buy, not sell.

I am hoping this is because those estate sellers are poised for higher profits; I can’t believe they are lacking in inventory. If only one of them had shown, that company would have cleaned up.

My guess is that the vendors who came are glad they did. I think the turnout and the busy booths bode well for better jewelry sales in the last half of 2010.