Jewelry Makes the Outfit on PR
Jewelry Weblog, CA
Bravo’s Project Runway started this past Wednesday evening with a two hour back-to-back premier, and a horde of excited designer/contestants.
It’s a tad late to recap the show, and besides, you can catch the reruns this week. Plus, if you have read any news from the net you know that Stacey may have an MBA but she doesn’t know how to use an industrial sewing machine. Time to take a class at a trade school, honey. And the winner, Keith, whose every other sentence is “I do men’s wear,” yeah, uh, we got it already, made a shirt out of a sheet.
As a jewelry journalist of sorts, what I found most interesting is that of the top outfits, two heavily relied on jewelry to “make it.” First, Mr. I-Do-Men’s-Wear and his pathetic halter top dress used a fabulous beaded necklaces and a pair of bracelets that I wish we had a close up of to enhance what is otherwise a basic halter dress.
Obviously, this dress was not my favorite. But, with the addition of the right jewelry accessories he, as the great Tim Gunn would say, “made it work.”
Then there’s the dress by Barbie designer, Robert. This really incorporated the jewelry into the dress. I wish they provided a back view photo on the Bravo site (which is where these came from) because while the front looks great, the jeweled wall hanging he used as a necklace also acted as straps that crossed in the back with the addition of red bows to connect them.
One of my beefs with previous seasons is the lack of attention to jewelry and other accessories by the designers. Heck, they have an entire wall of goodies to pick from. And, Vincent, I love you, but a basket slash hat? Forget about it.
You guys do what you do best. Make a pretty dress. Then jazz it up with some jewelry made by someone who knows how to design jewelry.
Permalink: Jewelry Makes the Outfit on PR
Tags: jewelry necklace project runway outfit jewelry+makes makes+outfit please+enter
Trackback: http://www.creative-weblogging.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.pl/29378
July 17th, 2006
IDEX Online Research: U.S. Gold Jewelry Sales Rise 4% in 2005
(July 16, ‘06, 6:19 Ken Gassman)/IDEX Online, Israel
Gold jewelry sales in the U.S. market were about $17.7 billion in 2005, according to the World Gold Council, an increase of 4.4 percent over the prior year. This is slightly greater than the 3.8 percent increase for all U.S. jewelry sales, and it indicates that gold jewelry gained market share.
The graph below summarizes annual gold jewelry sales in the U.S. since 1993.
Gold jewelry sales statistics include all classes of men’s and women’s jewelry where the primary value is gold content, including gemstone jewelry. However, uncounted are gold mounts used for diamond jewelry and other classes of jewelry where gold is not the primary value
While sales figures are not available for all categories of jewelry, IDEX Online Research believes that gold jewelry likely took market share from platinum jewelry.
Gold Jewelry Is Major Portion of U.S. Market
The graph below summarizes sales by market segment by gold jewelry, diamond jewelry, and total jewelry. Because these figures are derived from different sources, and because of definitional differences, it would appear that gold and diamond jewelry represent most of the U.S. jewelry market. However, there is overlap between these two categories; further, the figures were furnished by trade associations that represent each of these categories.
Despite small differences in demand on an annual basis between gold jewelry and total jewelry, the total gold jewelry sales mix in the U.S. market has remained remarkably stable at around 30 percent-31 percent since the early 1990s, as the graph below illustrates.
Demand for Gold Jewelry Follows Demand for All Jewelry
In general, when demand is strong for all jewelry, consumers step up their purchase of gold jewelry. When demand for all jewelry falters, gold jewelry usually suffers, too. However, in 2001, consumers increased their demand for gold jewelry. In part, this was a reaction to the events of September 11; consumers began to move some of their assets into gold as a safe harbor to hedge against potential volatile currency swings.
While jewelry should not be touted as “an investment,†those consumers who purchased gold and gold jewelry in 2001 bought it at the bottom of the current price cycle, as the graph below illustrates.
Gold Jewelry Prices Do Not Follow Gold Price Swings
However, it is important to note that gold jewelry sales do not typically follow gold price swings. The graph below compares changes in the price of gold versus changes in demand for gold jewelry in the U.S. market. Gold prices have shown volatile swings (green bars) while demand for gold jewelry has been much more consistent and stable.
July 17th, 2006
