Jewelry Business Guru by Cindy Edelstein

Handmade at NYGift Show - designer report

Traffic at the Handmade section of the NY Gift Show was slower than last year, said many, but the popular designer lines still had a good show.

And we had fun visiting with so many great friends.

Trends spotted at the show:

GREEN Jewelry is gaining a real toehold in our industry (see early post on Fair Jewelry Summit) and the latest to take the concept and run with it was Cynthia Gale of GeoArt. Her new Go Green campaign was attracting a lot of attention.
That's Cynthia on the right.                         

Another great green initiative is Julie Bergstein's (on the left) new locket collection for her eponymous line Just Jules. She combines vintage lockets, watch fobs and other trinkets with pearls and beads and chain to create contemporary keepsakes. She told us that she sold out by the second day -- she's on the hunt for more vintage lockets so if you see any/have any to sell -- email her from her website at www.justjules.com.

Stephen Estelle saw a great interest in his vermeil collection. His rationale? "They're simultaneously selling down with the economy (from the karat gold line) while feeling like you're keeping up because it's gold and not silver," said Stephen. Great understanding of the marketplace.

 

 

here's Suzanne Vaughan of Ann Sportun looking as cool and graceful as the jewels!

Can you see the size of those baroque pearls in front of her! To die for!

Over at Somer's Jewelry owner at Hilary Randolph told us that her gold WAS selling better than expected -- considering she's predominently a silver line this was surprising news indeed.

While at the Ann Sportun/Experimetal booth they were getting some traction for their diamond designs. These reports gave us hope that the year won't be as bad as we keep fearing it could be!

When will this Affect Jewelry Design Knockoffs?

U.S. Senators Introduce Bill to Nail Design Thiefs

by Renata Espinosa on www.fashionwiredaily.com
August 09th, 2007 @ 12:06 AM -
Not so fast, "fast" fashion – if a new design piracy bill that U.S. senators just introduced passes, companies hawking copies of an original design registered by a designer with the U.S. Copyright Office may find themselves dealing with a copyright infringement lawsuit. 

Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Herb Kohl (D-WI), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) introduced the bill in Washington D.C. last Thursday, August 2. 

Under the bill, called the Design Piracy Prohibition Act, designers would be protected for a period of up to three years against piracy. A similar bill was presented in the House of Representatives in April by Representatives Delahunt, Goodlatte, Maloney and Bono.

Such intellectual property protection is common in Europe for designers, and just recently the label Chloe successfully sued UK retailer Topshop for producing a near-identical yellow romper. But in the U.S., current laws namely deal with counterfeit goods (those infringing on a registered trademark that purports to be authentic) but doesn't protect the designers' ideas.

Narciso Rodriguez, Marc Bouwer, Nicole Miller, Jeffrey Banks, Yeohlee Tang, Richard Lambertson of Lamberston Truex and Dana Foley of Foley and Corrina were among the American designers present at a press conference today hosted by Senator Schumer at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York in support of the bill.