Jewelry Business Guru by Cindy Edelstein

World Gold Council is Looking for Great Gold Designs to Promote this Year

The World Gold Council creates a Look Book each year for retailers and press that is filled with great new designs for the new year. For the past few years they've opened up this great opportunity to all by inviting all gold designers and manufacturers to send in a small collection to be considered for their promotional uses. They call it the Blue Ribbon Panel.

Tomorrow is the deadline for an application to submit your work to be considered for their Look Book, Trend Reports, trade show displays and more.

Contact: Duvall O'Steen at World Gold Council, [email protected] to get a form. Or email me at [email protected] -- I've got the form, too.

"We Need to Shrink the Supply and Create the Demand" says Diane Von Furstenberg

Wisdom or fashion foolishness? You decide.

Ms. von Furstenberg added that "last season’s woes were caused in part by a glut of inventory. For Fall 2009, she said she dropped some stores from carrying her line, although she declined to name specifics. 'What we need to do is shrink the supply and create the demand. It’s as simple as that.”

This quote was in a recent Wall Street Journal article on the recent Fall Fashion Shows entitled "Fall 2009: Designing During a Downturn."

“Optimism, optimism, optimism. It’s crazy to think that things are going to to stay the way they are,” Mr. Kneen , Creative Director of Banana Republic,  added. “But if you don’t change with them, then you’re not going to be around.”

globalDESIGN 09 - great jewelry designers + great retailers = beauty for all

Get the Right Perspective

I'm sitting at my desk, reviewing the100+ jpgs that are the entries for a design competition. That's how it goes now with some competitions and many juries, we're not all in a room reviewing slides but sitting at our own offices reviewing a CD.

I assume everyone has entered their best design from the past 12 months -- that's usually the first criteria of entering a design competition. When you can enter just 1 or 2 designs - I assume they are what you're most proud of and feel can best compete against your peers' best designs.

So why am I seeing so many bad photographs? And some work that is truly redundant?

Why put forth in lousy form something you consider your best art?

Why enter something that is so common -- do they not know better? Do they not read the trade magazines or shop the competition, so to speak, by reviewing what's already out there? Why not? 

Designers need perspective in their businesses -- especially these days -- and to know what's going on out there and really think about context.  What you send to a contest may not be what your wholesale buyers are most interested in and they both may differ from what a consumer would be most attracted to when shopping for herself.

Advice for the day: think of the right context for each scenario. Get the right perspective.

re⋅dun⋅dant                          –adjective

1.	characterized by verbosity or unnecessary repetition in expressing ideas; prolix: a redundant style.

globalDESIGN showcase of exceptional jewels this weekend in Philly - a reason for retailers to visit

We all know this is an historic year -- and what worked before may never work again. Granted. But the gallery market is still a flexible, creative, vibrant and eclectic world for jewelry designers.

We invite all retailers to come visit us at the PA Convention Center -- 12th and Arch St. -- from Friday to Sunday. Our 18 jewelry designers will give you great ideas on how to entice your customers to shop this season. Beautiful jewels, every pricepoint and a unique point-of-view can be had at globalDESIGN, the showcase of exceptional jewels.

Mosaic bracelet by Stephanie Albertson; dark and light silver suite by Gurhan.

 

Calling all colored-stone jewelry designs

National Jeweler magazine will be honoring the most exciting and unique colored-stone jewelry designs in the February installment of its 2009 Best of Marketing and Design Contest.

Entries can be submitted at NationalJeweler.com/BestOf by following a simple registration process (and $50 fee) and uploading the appropriate media files.

All colored-stone jewelry submissions will be judged during the first week in March by a panel of industry experts, including Victoria Gomelsky of Couture International Jeweler, Amanda Gizzi of the Jewelry Information Center and Lorraine DePasque of National Jeweler. Winners will be prominently featured in National Jeweler magazine and on its Web site, NationalJeweler.com.

"The Best of Program allows us to highlight the truly innovative design being created in today's jewelry market," National Jeweler Network Group Publishing Director Chris Casey said in a media release. "The monthly program alternates between product and advertising to showcase all faces that we show to the market. February's focus on gemstones ties to the excitement around Tucson and this still hot category."