Big, loud, rich jewelry is back. Sales of “high jewelry” — think drop earrings the size of grapes, brooches as big as bar coasters and elaborate chokers dripping with gems — have exploded in recent years, retailers, antique dealers and auction houses say. The robust economy has boosted sales of conspicuous items by “name” jewelers, private-label pieces that might have been considered too ostentatious just a few years ago.
“At private parties in Paris, London or New York,” people are pulling out the “big rocks,” says John M. Davis, a New York interior designer active on the charity fund-raising circuit. The trend is even more pronounced in the South, he notes. “In Nashville, [Tenn.], and Atlanta, the jewels will blind you.”
At Harry Winston Inc. jewelers, “Minimalism has really taken a back seat to opulence since 1994,” says Carol Brodie-Gelles, a spokeswoman for the firm, which reports a 50% growth in U.S. retail sales from 1994 to 1997.
The jewelry market is reacting to the same forces that are driving the fashion business: the booming stock market of recent years, an overall move toward more ostentatious accessorizing, and then there’s the Hollywood factor.
Fred Leighton, a New York-based jeweler who specializes in antique and estate jewelry, says business was “never better” than after “Titanic” star Kate Winslet wore an Edwardian 17-carat, pear-shaped diamond on an emerald and diamond chain to this year’s Academy Awards. “Kate Winslet was on camera every time she turned.”
Says Tom Julian, trend analyst at Fallon McElligott, a New York advertising firm, “Sharon Stone wore a jeweled dragonfly to close her Vera Wang dress. Linda Hamilton wore diamonds in her hair. Then you had Cher, who had diamonds in her tear ducts.” People are saying, “`I’m tired of basics. I want personality, I want individuality.’”
Demographics play a role, too. As women age, they like bigger jewels, says Woodstock, Vt., gem expert and author Antoinette Matlins. “If you really want to make an impression, size is the best way to get attention. And the older the woman, the larger the size.” Over age 30, “a carat seems small.”
On Tuesday, July 28, New York antiques dealer David Killen bought a 6-ounce 18-karat gold and diamond necklace from another dealer as part of a multipiece jewelry consignment. A year ago, he notes, the 1960s moon-and-stars design would have sat in a case at his Upper East Side store for one or two months before selling. But last month, he made a call to one client, who said her friend was interested.
The necklace sold for $6,500 by Thursday and was worn to a lavish charity ball in the Hamptons that weekend. The client, he says, “now wants matching earrings.”
Attempting to cash in on — or at least fuel — demand for flashy pieces, jeweler Bulgari SpA recently brought out a collection of one-of-a-kind pieces that travel from store to store and average about $70,000 each.
The Italian jeweler has introduced other marketing gimmicks too: At its recently renovated Fifth Avenue store in New York, Bulgari opened a cafe and introduced a summer jazz series. Each Wednesday, the store filled up with uptown socialites and downtown artist types wooed with free drinks and surrounded by counters filled with luxury goods.
Cartier jewelers previewed its fall line not at the store but at a party in a chic New York restaurant. Understated elegance? Not this year. The models who preened on a platform under runway-style lights were sporting custom-made, one-of-a-kind pieces. They included a platinum and diamond parrot ring with a 10-carat sapphire and a hefty 54-carat watch, encircled by two diamond-encrusted dolphins each as thick as a finger. Prices? Not available upon request. In other words, if you have to ask…. (After much prodding, Cartier disclosed that the pieces cost $198,000 and $380,000, respectively.)
Jewelers have long created elaborate, unique pieces, but they were often used as gimmicks to interest buyers who would go on to buy less-expensive merchandise. What’s different now is that the fabulous show-stoppers are selling.
“We’ve been selling the craziest things,” says William Fuhrman, executive vice president of the North America division of Chopard & Cie S.A., a Swiss jeweler. The company says its average sale has risen to the $15,000 to $20,000 price range, from a $7,000 to $10,000 range, over the last year. One of Chopard’s bestsellers this year: a $60,000 diamond pave watch.
This is all relative, of course. Most people could never afford so-called high jewelry and the rich have always been able to buy fine gems. Still, jewelers say in recent years, the pieces that people buy are bigger — and more rare — than in the past.
“It’s not just `I want pearls’ anymore. It’s `I want black Tahitian pearls’ or `I want blue-colored diamonds,’” says John Block, head of worldwide jewelry sales for Sotheby’s Holdings Inc. auctioneer, which will sell the $10-million jewelry collection of socialite Betsey Cushing Whitney this fall.
Reflecting the increased interest in colored diamonds, the Gemological Institute of America recently created new, more detailed designations for them. Harry Winston reports a sharp increase in demand.
Auction houses Christie’s International PLC and Sotheby’s have been a big part of the boom in expensive-jewelry sales, muscling into territory formerly occupied solely by upscale retailers. Jewelry is now the second-highest revenue producer at Christie’s after 20th-century art, according to department head Francois Curiel. In the first half of this year, Christie’s says jewelry sales are up 13%, to $136.4 million from the year-earlier period. Some flashy sales: A big pink diamond sold in Hong Kong for $1.2 million and an 11.25-carat blue diamond brought $1.4 million in Geneva.
The blockbuster $50.3-million sale of the Duchess of Windsor’s jewels in 1987 started it all. Auction catalogs now treat jewelry houses such as Tiffany & Co. and Cartier much like artists, granting designers biographies and index listings. Across the board, demand is particularly strong for jewelry identified with a particular design house; it seems to offer a guarantee of a certain quality of stone and classic design.
As demand heats up, so do demands for quality. In 1997, Christie’s began publicly disclosing artificial enhancements made to gems — such as heat treatments used to lend stones more brilliance.
At Noa, a New York jeweler that conducts its appointment-only business from an airy SoHo loft, customers can lounge on a black leather couch and sip cappuccino or champagne while diamonds are magnified on a “Diamond Zoom Imaging System.” Potential clients now get a video of their stone which they can take home and view while mulling over a purchase.
Says Yaron Kaminski, president of Noa. “They are demanding a better well-made stone and they’re willing to spend more money for it.”
Part of the reason Bulgari and other jewelers are marketing so hard is to take advantage of the growing, and possibly short-lived, affluence and disposable income of 30- and 40-somethings. “The growth will last for about five to 10 years,” predicts a Bulgari spokesman. “Then it will start to shrink. It’s now or never.”
