Category: Trends & News

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WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Graff develops own watch movement | Professional Jeweller.com

Well, there you have it!  A world class jewelry designer and retailer moves into the ultra-expensive watch industry.

Professional Jeweler can exclusively reveal that Graff has developed its own watch movement for the first time and will be unveiling the movement, which it has dubbed Graff Calibre 1, in Basel this week.
The movement will be showcased [...]

Tips For Making Bracelets

Creating bracelets is fun.
If this is your hobby, then its time to make it more interesting.
The bracelet making and maintaining tips follows
1.Decide how many links you want to use in making your bracelet. Although it is easy both to add and remove the links even after you make your bracelet its better if you plan [...]

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Emeralds – The World’s Most Expensive Gemstone

One thing that most people know is that emeralds are a major gemstone and that they are expensive. That’s largely because emeralds are a type of the mineral beryl and they are rare. They come in varying shades of green.
It is chromium, vanadium or iron elements in the stone which make that lovely green color. [...]

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Diamond Wedding Ring Guide: No Nonsense Guide For Choosing Your Ring

One activity that you will undoubtedly appreciate when preparing for your wedding ceremony is the wedding ring selection. Like most young girls, you have probably spent most of your life dreaming of the perfect diamond wedding ring. Hopefully, you and your fiance have decided to shop for rings together, or you have informed him of what you like. You will wear the wedding ring for a significant amount of time and it only makes sense that it’s something that you like. If your knowledge of diamond wedding rings is limited to size, it’s a good idea that you obtain more information before you make your wedding ring selection.

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Colored Gemstones: Forever Fascinating

The universe of colored gemstones is endlessly fascinating, for centuries, nearly every culture has held the belief that colored gemstones possess magical powers or the ability to provide the wearer with certain attributes.
This way of thinking has motivated the world of fashion. Natural gemstone jewelry is mystical in all of its beauty. Women need to [...]

Richard Wise to speak at GIA Thailand – 33rd Gemstone Gathering

Another great opportunity to hear Richard Wise  speak!  Richard is a noted bench jeweler by trade on top of being an excellent writer and speaker.
For its 33rd Gemstone Gathering, the Gemological Institute of America GIA Thailand has invited Richard W. Wise, a graduate gemologist and president of R.W. Wise, Goldsmiths Inc., to share his experiences. [...]

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New Jewelry Designs by Michelle Trachtenberg for Coach

New cutting edge jewelry line from Coach will have them all standing in line. We love these new jewelry designs!

News & Trends: Michelle Trachtenberg may be one of Hollywood’s hardest working actresses. The star of Gossip Girl and Mercy has teamed up with Poppy from Coach to create her first jewelry collection.

The Michelle Trachtenberg for Poppy collection is as multi-faceted as Michelle’s roles, combining pretty gemstones with chunky hardware. Poppy describes the look as “confident yet romantic, rockin’ yet refined.”

The collection is filled with colorful Swarovski crystals handset in Coach’s signature hardware.

Each item is a statement in itself including rings, earrings, chunky multi-strand necklaces and cuff-style bracelets.

Personally, I love the Jackie O pearls meets Mr. T, “Pearl and Chain Necklace” combo that perfectly reflects a hardcore girly-girl.

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Fun Ways to Wear Your Jewelry

As with everything else in life, sometimes we fall into habits in how we wear our jewelry. We put the brooch on out left shoulder, we wear the same necklace with the same dress and the same earrings.

This article will help stimulate your thinking about how you wear jewelry. It’s not exhaustive — if you have other ideas of better ways to use jewelry, let me know. Pins are perhaps the most versatile of jewelry. In addition to the usual shoulder or lapel, they are often worn with scarves. Try these other ways of wearing your pins to extend your jewelry vocabulary.

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Pearl Grading: A No-Nonsense Guide to Pearls

Thanks to aggressive publicity campaigns sponsored by the diamond industry, anyone buying a diamond can confidently go into the transaction armed with enough information to ask the right questions. In the pre-purchase stage, you’ll likely query the seller about the five C’s: carat, cut, clarity, color and cost. As long as you trust the jeweler, you can be confident about the value of the gem you’re interested in based on his or her answers. But what about pearls? What questions do you ask? What does a high quality pearl look like? What are traits to avoid? Here we’ll tell you what makes a pearl valuable. We’ll also give you questions to ask your jeweler and tools to judge these lustrous gems yourself.

Pearl Value Factors

While there is no international standard for grading pearls, there is a system that is commonly used to evaluate these beautiful colored gemstones. Developed by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), the world’s largest non-profit institute of gemological research and learning, this grading system considers seven pearl traits when determining value. They are: size, shape, color, luster, surface quality, nacre quality, and matching. Let’s take a look at each one as it relates to the beautiful cultured pearl.

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Do You Have Enough Jewelry Insurance?

Jewelry insurance comes in many forms and varieties and only an insurance agent can provide accurate and specific advice. However, it helps to know enough about jewelry insurance to ask your agent the right questions and to be aware of how the process works. The time to ask your insurance agent the questions is before you insure an item, not when you need to file a claim. Read the fine print in your insurance contract to be sure it provides the coverage you expect.

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Keep Your Jewelry Clean And Sparkling Throughout The Year

Everybody, especially women, loves jewelry. It’s an accessory that one cannot simply do without. However, people are hard-pressed to keep it clean and sparkling. You can of course take the help of a professional jewelry cleaner, but these can be pretty expensive.

There are numerous ways and means thorough which you can keep your jewelry in ship shape throughout the year. What’s more you can employ these methods from the comforts of your home. They are easy to do, and easy to learn. Here are a few tips on keeping your jewelry clean and sparkling throughout the year:
Cleaning Your Precious Diamonds

The process is quite simple. Take a glass bowl, and pour some Vodka into it. Take your diamond jewelry and swish it inside the bowl. Take it out and then rinse it with clean, clear water and wipe it dry with a soft cloth. Moreover, if your diamond jewelry is really very dirty, then it is advisable that you dip a soft toothbrush in the vodka and scrub the jewelry delicately. This process will clean and add the requisite sparkle to the diamond jewelry in no time at all.

Jewelry gets a boost at SAG Awards

Los Angeles–From black-and-white diamond combination to snake designs to turquoise, there seemed to be no parameters for the jewelry-wearing starlets who made the red-carpet rounds at the 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards.

The SAG Awards, which took place Saturday, and were broadcast live from the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center, were the second key award event of the season, following fast on the heels of the Golden Globe awards. In both cases, jewelry designers and stylists took full advantage of the moment to put jewelry on the red carpet.

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Rarest pearls go on display in Abu Dhabi UAE

One of the largest natural pearls in the world will go on display tomorrow at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi.

The marvelous piece of nature’s gift named ‘Pearl of Sheikha Fatima’ is one of the rarest pearls found so far.

The exhibition is organized by the Abu Dhabi-based Pearl Revival Committee (PRC) under the patronage of HH Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak, Chairperson of General Women’s Union (GWA) and Supreme Chairperson of the Family Development Foundation.

The exceptionally rare pearl will be the major attraction of the Natural Pearl Display, which is being held in from 25th January 2010. The Display, which PRC is organizing with the support of Robert Wan, “the emperor of pearl”, will also feature a number of the world’s rarest natural pearls and pearling master collections, including a showcase from K.C. Bell, one of the world’s leading experts on pearls.

A natural salt-water nacreous baroque pearl – length of 4 inches (10.2 cm), circumference of 6 inches (15.2 cm) and 856.58 carats (171.3 gram) in weight – the pearl is almost twice as large as the Hope pearl, which is displayed at the British Museum of Natural History, and almost 11 carats heavier than the Burma pearl. It has been incorporated into the design of a stunning sculptural jewel of a Centaur, a Greek mythological creature that was believed to be half man and half horse; the pearl forms the torso of the Centaur, with the remaining parts sculptured in gold.

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Why jewelers should join the digital revolution (National Jeweler)

Remember the old line from the Woody Allen movie Annie Hall? “Relationships are like sharks; they move forward or they die.” That thought applies to the jewelry industry, too, which has to move forward, as well, or face becoming, at worst, irrelevant or, at best, an afterthought.

As we know all too well, consumers are gripped by what one might call an “electronic gizmo revolution.” How can–or how will–jewelers develop a relationship with the revolution, or at the very least capitalize on its sales and profit potential?

How can jewelers develop a framework for electronic innovation in an extremely competitive environment that is changing at warp speed?

Several innovation-focused firms, both here and overseas, have started their own electronic innovation building strategies already. There’s Paragon Lake in Lexington, Mass., which used enhanced computer technology to develop a “virtual display case” for jewelers that allows retail customers to build their own custom pieces.

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Diamond Education

A all inclusive guide to understanding diamonds. Understand what is on the diamond certificate. How two diamonds of the same size, color and clarity can vary in price by 35%! Both visual and detailed explanations of a diamond’s size, color, clarity and cut, and how each of these factors independently influence prices!

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Zale(ZLC): CEO, two top executives are gone

Zale Corp. announced late Wednesday that Chief Executive Officer Neal Goldberg and two other executives are no longer with the company.

The change in leadership will help renew Zale’s focus on its core diamond business and help return the company to profitability, the company said in a statement.

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IVANKA TRUMP to headline 2010 WJA’S Women in the Know conference

Women’s Jewelry Association’s (WJA) Women in the Know Conference (WITK), scheduled for Friday, March 12, 2010 at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City, will feature as its headliner Ivanka Trump, jewelry entrepreneur, social and style icon, businesswoman, best-selling author, international TV personality and daughter of Donald and Ivana Trump.

A summa cum laude graduate from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Trump is the executive vice president of Development & Acquisitions within the Trump Organization and a co-founder of the Trump Hotel Collection. She undertook her first independent project outside of the Trump Organization in 2007 – the launch of Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry on Madison Avenue in New York City. A luxury diamond jewelry line developed in partnership with Dynamic Diamond, the collection features timeless and elegant gold and platinum jewelry designs that offer a modern interpretation of the best jewelry classics from the 20s to the 60s, now available at her boutique and also offered at wholesale to select retailers internationally.

The inspiration behind Ivanka’s new venture came from her mother Ivana’s collection of diamonds and gems, as well as from pieces her father gave her through the years. With her design philosophy, “to inspire elegance among the women of a new generation,” Ivanka’s goal is to design important pieces with a youthful, refreshed elegance that fits perfectly into the lives of today’s intelligent, self-assured, social women.

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Increase Your Retail Cultured Pearl Jewelry Sales with Dazzling Displays

When selling any type of jewelry, be it bridal or cultured pearls, your displays make all the difference in how well your items sell. Customers are often drawn to those dazzling jewelry displays that offer shimmering lights and vibrant colors. Different types of pearl jewelry can be displayed in such ways to attract the eyes of customers. Use the jewelry display tips below to increase cultured pearl sales in your retail store.

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European Style, Chinese Muscle

The Great Wall of China is not working. Built in 200 BC to protect the land from Mongols hoards, the Great Wall is a symbol of the vast breadth and scope of the economic development of the Chinese nation. International corporations have taken the place of invading Mongols, as they have occupied the Chinese worker in factories across the country. With the approval of the Chinese government, businesses around the globe have made China their main industrial source for all things manufactured. The silver jewelry industry is one such example.

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Handcrafting Jewelry Boxes – Are you Truely Committed to Quality?

Quality has become a meaningless word in today’s marketplace, but genuine quality still exists. From the rigorous process of selecting the perfect materials to the strict attention to the finest detail of functional design, find out exactly what defines true quality hand crafting.


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Jewelry References

  • Jewelry Information Center (JIC) Jewelry Information Center (JIC) is the public relations arm of the fine jewelry and watch industries. Founded as a non-profit trade association in 1946 in New York City, JIC is funded by its members (nearly 1,000 manufacturers, designers, and retailers o Jewelry Information Center (JIC) is the public relations arm of the fine jewelry and watch industries. Founded as a non-profit trade association in 1946 in New York City, JIC is funded by its members (nearly 1,000 manufacturers, designers, and retailers o
  • Fashion Conversations
  • AGS Laboratories AGS Laboratories is the world’s premier diamond grading laboratory for diamond cut, the first diamond laboratory to offer a diamond cut grade based on proven science and the first laboratory to offer cut grading for fancy shapes including princess, emeral AGS Laboratories is the world’s premier diamond grading laboratory for diamond cut, the first diamond laboratory to offer a diamond cut grade based on proven science and the first laboratory to offer cut grading for fancy shapes including princess, emeral
  • Cultured Pearl Association of America The Cultured Pearl Association of America, Inc is a non profit group founded in 1957, comprised of the finest manufacturers, wholesalers, dealers and suppliers of Cultured Pearls in the United States.  Our intention is to “cultivate” awareness, interest, The Cultured Pearl Association of America, Inc is a non profit group founded in 1957, comprised of the finest manufacturers, wholesalers, dealers and suppliers of Cultured Pearls in the United States. Our intention is to “cultivate” awareness, interest,
  • American Gem Labs (AGL) American Gemological Laboratories (AGL) is an international gemstone testing facility specializing in comprehensive colored gemstone analysis. AGL provides identification reports, detailed enhancement reports, country-of-origin or provenance reports, as w American Gemological Laboratories (AGL) is an international gemstone testing facility specializing in comprehensive colored gemstone analysis. AGL provides identification reports, detailed enhancement reports, country-of-origin or provenance reports, as w
  • The World Jewellery Confederation CIBJO is an international confederation of national jewelery trade organizations. CIBJO’s purpose is to encourage harmonization, promote international cooperation in the jewelery industry, and to consider issues which concern the trade worldwide. CIBJO is an international confederation of national jewelery trade organizations. CIBJO’s purpose is to encourage harmonization, promote international cooperation in the jewelery industry, and to consider issues which concern the trade worldwide.
  • AGTA Gem Industry Guide The AGTA is recognized within the jewelry trade as the authoritative source on natural colored gemstones: “The voice of the natural colored gemstone, pearl and cultured pearl industries.” The AGTA is recognized within the jewelry trade as the authoritative source on natural colored gemstones: “The voice of the natural colored gemstone, pearl and cultured pearl industries.”
  • Gemological Institute of America (GIA) Established in 1931, GIA is the world’s largest and most respected nonprofit institute of gemological research and learning.  GIA discovers (through GIA Research), imparts (through GIA Education), and applies (through the GIA Laboratory and GIA Instrument Established in 1931, GIA is the world’s largest and most respected nonprofit institute of gemological research and learning. GIA discovers (through GIA Research), imparts (through GIA Education), and applies (through the GIA Laboratory and GIA Instrument
  • Platinum Guild International The Platinum Guild International is the official website for platinum jewelry; offering advice and information, design inspiration, and where to find a recommended platinum retailer in your area. The site is brought to you by Platinum Guild International, The Platinum Guild International is the official website for platinum jewelry; offering advice and information, design inspiration, and where to find a recommended platinum retailer in your area. The site is brought to you by Platinum Guild International,
  • The Silver Institute The Silver Institute is a nonprofit international association that draws its membership from across the breadth of the silver industry. This includes leading silver mining houses, refiners, bullion suppliers, manufacturers of silver products and wholesale The Silver Institute is a nonprofit international association that draws its membership from across the breadth of the silver industry. This includes leading silver mining houses, refiners, bullion suppliers, manufacturers of silver products and wholesale
  • World Gold Council Founded in 1987, the World Gold Council is an organization formed and funded by the world’s leading gold mining companies with the aim of stimulating and maximising the demand for, and holding of Gold. Founded in 1987, the World Gold Council is an organization formed and funded by the world’s leading gold mining companies with the aim of stimulating and maximising the demand for, and holding of Gold.

Jewelry Titans

  • Tiffany & Company The year was 1837. Charles Lewis Tiffany and his schoolmate John Young traveled from New England to New York City with an idea and a dream that were to become Tiffany & Co. While the first day of business brought a mere four dollars and 98 cents, the The year was 1837. Charles Lewis Tiffany and his schoolmate John Young traveled from New England to New York City with an idea and a dream that were to become Tiffany & Co. While the first day of business brought a mere four dollars and 98 cents, the
  • Harry Winston Harry Winston always possessed a gift; he had an eye for the best gemstones and a nose for what the customer wanted. Winston is still known for exquisite jewelry. His name is still linked to some of the most beautiful jewels and settings in the world. Harry Winston always possessed a gift; he had an eye for the best gemstones and a nose for what the customer wanted. Winston is still known for exquisite jewelry. His name is still linked to some of the most beautiful jewels and settings in the world.
  • Cartier Louis Francois Cartier the son of a powder horn maker, founded Cartier in 1847; the year his workshop master Adolphe Picard died. Cartier would take over Maitre Picard’s Jewelry shop located at 31 Rue Montorgueil, Paris. Louis Francois Cartier the son of a powder horn maker, founded Cartier in 1847; the year his workshop master Adolphe Picard died. Cartier would take over Maitre Picard’s Jewelry shop located at 31 Rue Montorgueil, Paris.
  • Company pays $210K for Henry Dunay name
    A company called Sandawana Holdings has paid $210,000 for the intellectual property of jewelry design company Henry Dunay Designs, the company founder confirmed. […]
  • Tenn. jeweler files Chapter 11
    Signature Jewelers in Lebanon, Tenn., has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, court papers show. […]
  • IDI's 2010 campaign emphasizes responsibility
    The Israel Diamond Institute Group of Companies (IDI) is emphasizing greater responsibility among members of the diamond community in 2010, as the recession-battered industry continues to recover from the downturn. […]
  • Invictus star's '46664' bangle to hit auction
    A bespoke bangle bracelet worn by Invictus star Morgan Freeman at this year's Academy Awards will soon find its way onto the arm of a new owner, one helping to take on an important cause. […]
  • Stuller brings in industry vet Race to head bridal
    Stuller announced that Craig Race, a 35-year industry veteran, has joined the company as its new bridal jewelry vice president, a move that the company says is designed to reinforce the Diamond Trading Co. (DTC) sightholder's commitment to enhanced product development and merchandising. […]
  • Gemfields sells $7.2M at rough emerald, beryl sale
    Auction house Gemfields has hosted what it is calling its largest auction to date, with its March sale of rough emerald and beryl yielding $7.2 million in sales. […]
  • NYC museum extends natural color diamond exhibit
    New York's American Museum of Natural History is extending an exhibit featuring the Olympia Diamond Collection, a set of five vivid natural color diamonds. […]
  • Jewelry crimes up 3.5 percent in 2009
    The number of jewelry industry crimes rose slightly in 2009, with a significant uptick in incidents that occurred in stores or other business premises versus crimes that happened on the road, the latest data released by the Jewelers' Security Alliance (JSA) shows. […]
  • Shane Co. seeks fourth extension to reorganize
    Shane Co. is asking the court for another extension that would give the company more time to file a plan detailing how it intends to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, court papers show. […]
  • Report: Online demand for watches up 24.5 percent
    The use of the Internet as a shopping and browsing venue for watches is on the rise, with the latest edition of the WorldWatchReport showing that online global demand for watch brands, as measured by the number of online searches, is up 24.5 percent. […]

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