ASIA PACIFIC EDITION GEMSTONE MASTERS Bulgari Fabergé Boucheron HAUTE HOROLOGY Colourful Watches Wrap Timepieces
84 August — September 2016
TONES OF SUMMER Gems from the Garden Enamel Accessories Fan-Inspired Jewels TRENDING Clutches & Rings Lapis Lazuli Open Collar Necklaces
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MILLENNIALS ARE NOT BUYING DIAMONDS ANY MORE, THE WAY THEIR PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS DID
yrating gold prices. A softening diamond market. The online marketplace. An increasingly uncertain outlook on the world we live in. If that is not enough to digest for legacy jewellers, they also have to deal with the Millennials and their new preferences. Credible research points out that millennials are not buying diamonds any more, the way their parents and grandparents did. Reasons can be found in reduced disposable income, but even more so in a desire to live in the moment and using available financial resources for travel, experiences, and education. It doesn’t stop there. While high jewellery and statement necklaces will always find a market in the uppermost wealth brackets, it is the rest of the market our industry needs to find solutions for. Without warning, and after just having grown used to using Facebook as a marketing tool, here comes the Instagram and Snapchat generation with their disrupting shopping habits. Liberal hashtagging and using slang like “trending” or “YOLO” will not suffice to engage this new consumer. What is red hot today is iceage dead tomorrow, and the attention span of this vast worldwide clientèle keeps shortening. The other trend affecting established jewellers is minimalist jewellery. Out with the bling, and in with smaller, more subtle pieces. Instead of switching one’s branded jewels daily to match mood and outfit, now it is all about pieces that go on and then hardly ever come off. Jewellery that you don’t notice until you are having a conversation with the person wearing it. Personal jewellery, in a varied sense of the word, rather than a brand-enforced statement. It is not a trend welcomed by high-street fine jewellers, but a somewhat refreshing and almost endearing new normal. We all better get used to it.
Rainer Sigel Publisher
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