Jewelry News

While many critics took careful note of the fact that the American Olympic team was clothed in uniforms made in China (Really? What were they thinking?), one small jeweler in Rhode Island (a state known for their long history of costume jewelry making) created bangle bracelets that were an instant hit.

Cranston-based Alex and Ani was selected by the US Olympic Committee to produce the charms for the 2012 London Games. It’s the latest sign of success for the company, which has gone from a small manufacturing operation with 15 employees and a store in Newport to an economic dynamo with 16 stores across the country. It’s a rare economic success story in a state with an unemployment rate of 10.9 percent, second-highest in the nation.

‘‘You can do business in the state of Rhode Island,’’ said owner and designer Carolyn Rafaelian. ‘‘You can thrive in the state of Rhode Island. You can make things here. It’s about love, about helping your community. I couldn’t say those things and make my stuff in China.’’

Alex and Ani makes colorful charms, beaded bangles, and other jewelry, mostly priced at less than $50. Many feature symbols from the zodiac, gods from Greek mythology, or the logos from Major League Baseball teams. The products are manufactured in Rhode Island using recycled materials.

The Olympic charm has proved to be a hit, with silver medalist swimmer Elizabeth Beisel, herself a Rhode Islander, tweeting that she was ‘‘more than excited for the Alex and Ani charm’’ she found in her uniform bag.

Read more at Boston.com.

We can’t say we were surprised when we saw this article. At our Scottsdale studio, we’ve seen a substantial increase in non-traditional engagement ring purchases. This article attributes it to celebrities who have thought outside of the box when it comes to engagement rings, but we also see that more modern couples naturally gravitate toward an engagement ring that speaks to their particular aesthetic. Whatever the reason, we carry gorgeous non-traditional engagement rings, including a collection of Barkev rings, mentioned in this piece:

 

A nontraditional engagement ring from Barkev’s (Photo according to Barkev’s)

Diamonds may be forever, but the traditional diamond engagement ring is not for everyone.

Jennifer Lopez made headlines back in 2002 when she wore a pink diamond engagement ring from then fiancé Ben Affleck, inspiring others to copy the trend. In a recent rom-com, The Five-Year Engagement, Jason Segel’s character proposes to his girlfriend with an antique ruby ring.

Even Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg chose a simple ruby stunner for his bride, Priscilla Chan, following in the footsteps of football player Eric Johnson, who proposed to Jessica Simpson last fall with a Neil Lane engagement ring centered on a cushion-cut ruby flanked by diamond accents.

In part because of these celebrity ring choices, nontraditional engagement rings have risen in popularity. “While about 95 percent of people come in looking for classic diamonds, there is always that 5 percent that go for something different,” Bob Swanson, owner of Swanson Jewelers in Arlington, Mass., says. “Sapphires and rubies have been popular recently.”

Read on…

Take a look at a few of our our non-traditional engagement rings below or view our full collection here.

Style 10702 Barkev’s Cathedral Style Solitaire Engagement Ring Starting from $1,385.00 Style 10703 Barkev’s Solitaire Engagement Ring Starting from $1,129.00 Style 10733 Barkev Split Shank Engagement Ring With Diamond Side Stones Starting from $2,155.00 Style 10752 Barkev Engagement Ring With Diamond Side Stones Starting from $2,649.00 Style 10764 Barkev Channel Set Engagement Ring With Round Side Diamonds Starting from $1,699.00 Style 10759 Barkev Prong Set Engagement Ring With Diamonds And Matching Plain Wedding Band Starting from $1,999.00 Style 10736 Barkev Engagement Ring With Round Diamond Side Stones Starting from $2,225.00 Style 10780 Barkev Four Prong Solitaire Engagement Ring Starting from $979.00 Style 10795 Barkev Curved Design Four Prong Solitaire Engagement Ring Starting from $715.00

We don’t think much about buying costume jewelry. It’s fun and easy to wear. It also sits on your skin, which is an organ, for hours at a time. And if your children are wearing costume children, they could be mindlessly sticking it in their mouths. Hence why it’s so disturbing to think so much lead (and cadmium–another dangerous component of cheap jewelry) is freely and easily passing through the marketplace.

LOS ANGELES — California is cracking down on more than a dozen businesses accused of selling and distributing costume jewelry containing dangerous levels of lead despite repeated warnings.

State investigators uncovered hundreds of lead-laced trinkets marketed to children and adults, including some pieces contaminated with lead levels more than 1,000 times the legal state limit.

The state was expected to file a lawsuit Tuesday against 16 companies – retailers, wholesalers, suppliers and distributors – doing business in Los Angeles and elsewhere. The companies are accused of violating lead standards and engaging in deceptive practices by falsely advertising tainted jewelry as lead-free.

For the past three years, inspectors at the state Department of Toxic Substances Control conducted spot checks at stores and factories, zapping necklaces, earrings, hair clips and tiaras with hand-held X-ray devices to check for lead. Items with high lead content were then shipped to a laboratory for detailed analysis. Jewelry items containing the toxic metal were mostly inexpensive.

Brian Johnson, deputy director of enforcement, said these were not isolated cases.

“You can walk into most any fashion jewelry business in the LA jewelry district and find similar violations,” Johnson said.

It’s against the law to make, ship or sell jewelry that contains dangerous levels of lead. Children’s jewelry cannot contain lead content exceeding the legal state limit of 600 parts per million. For adults, the limit is 60,000 parts per million.

Read more.

Architecture and jewelry design seem distinctly related. Both require bold, imaginative thinking, a sense of structure and flow and a final result that should wow the viewer. So it’s no surprise that world-renowned architect Frank Gehry could combine elements of his work and create amazing, distinctive pieces that usher in a new world of jewelry design. Undoubtedly we’ll see jewelry making continue in this vain, where artists are inspired by more accessible, eco-friendly or urban material as their source and the look breaks aesthetic boundaries.

Frank Gehry takes one giant leap in this direction and continues to earn his reputation for creating “beauty without rules” with a collection of jewelry constructed of concrete.

According to Pursuitist:

The collection comprises bangles and rings in Gehry’s signature torque design that echoes the twists and gently curved surfaces of his architectural triumphs. In a light gray hue and lined with sterling silver that is ridged like “rebars” which reinforce masonry structures, the jewelry takes on dynamic new expression, reflecting the kinetic rhythm and spontaneity of Gehry’s sketches and models.

“For me, design is about the process,” Gehry said. “Sketching and shaping three-dimensional models and conceptualizing different possibilities—this is the essence of creating, whether in architecture or jewelry.”

Exciting news for vintage jewelry lovers! The whimsy and sweetness of Schiaperlli is now within your reach.

On May 2, 1stdibs.com, the marketplace for all things vintage, will unveil a selection of rare Elsa Schiaparelli jewelry, timed to a museum show that connects her work to that of another influential Italian designer, Miuccia Prada. The items for sale were made between the 1930s and 1950s. They range in price from $350, for a pair of japanned metal ear clips, to more than $50,000 for a makeup compact shaped like a rotary telephone dial, which Schiaparelli designed with Salvador Dali around 1935.

“The nice thing about those pieces from the ’50s is that they’re not so expensive, even now,” said Mark Walsh of Vintage Luxury, who sourced this collection for 1stdibs.com with his business partner, Leslie Chin. “So everybody can have a little something Schiaparelli.”

Read more at The New York Times.

Here’s some samples of her work:

This video is a must see for any jewelry lover.

It displays from various angles the amazing Mirror Diamond necklace, containing five Mughal empire pendant diamonds with emerald drops and being offered at private sale at a price of $20 million, said auction house Bonham’s on Monday.

As you’ll hear on the video, this necklace contains colorless, rough diamonds that were discovered in the ancient Golconda mines in India during the height of the Mughal empire in the 16th and 17th centuries.

At 28 carats, the central stone is the largest mirror or table-cut diamond known to survive.

http://www.independent.ie/video/diamond-necklace-on-sale-for-12m-3094248.html

As we commemorate 100 years since The Titanic sank, many have been reflecting on the thousands of stories that have been told about this tragedy, from so many varying standpoints. This story in particular reflects on one man, a jeweler, who managed to send one piece of jewelry home to his family, but the diamonds he accrued were lost, possibly to be found in the not-so-distant future. Thanks to Stephanie Schaefer, Editorial Assistant at JCK, for this touching piece.

Ervin Lewy (photos courtesy of Stanley Lewy)

As the world commemorates the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, the descendants of a jeweler who made the fateful trip still hope that his lost inventory will be found.

In the early 1900s, Marks, Jay B., and Ervin Lewy established the Lewy Brothers Jewelry Company in Chicago, Ill. The store, which catered to the carriage trade, flourished until the time of the Great Depression.

In 1912, Ervin Lewy, the youngest brother, went to Europe on a diamond buying trip.

After poor luck purchasing diamonds in Amsterdam, Ervin decided to stay in Europe a few extra days and take the Titanic back to the United States. “I’ll be here about a week yet to see if I can’t do better. Can’t catch the Rotterdam as I expected but will probably sail on the Titanic from Cherborough the 10th,” Ervin wrote in a letter he sent home.

Ervin died when the ship sunk and never made it back to America, but a gift he sent his mother arrived in the mail shortly after the voyage. “He was in Paris and saw a sapphire with a cameo carved into it at Cartier and sent it to my grandmother through mail,” Stanley Lewy, Ervin’s great-nephew, says. “When the sapphire arrived my grandfather set the stone in a ring surrounded by baguette diamonds.”

Read more.

As you may know, diamonds are mined throughout the world and often cause conflict and destruction ecologically. More and more retailers are looking for “conflict free” or ethically mined diamonds but are they willing to pay more? Michelle Graff at 10x gives us the lowdown at a recent conference:

Last Wednesday, I attended a panel discussion on “ethical” diamonds organized by the Women’s Jewelry Association and held here in New York.

Inevitably, the discussion, moderated by jewelry industry writer and editor Peggy Jo Donahue, came around to the question of money: How much are people willing to pay for a diamond that lays claims to being responsibly mined?

It’s not unlike the questions Americans face in a myriad of other shopping situations.

You’re at the grocery store and the free-range, organic eggs, presumably produced by chickens with a (somewhat) better life than their factory-farmed counterparts, are lined up alongside regular, non-organic options. The organic eggs are double or even triple the price of the non-organic variety. Are you willing to pay more? Which will you choose?

Two of the panelists, Rebecca Foerster, the U.S. vice president of Rio Tinto Diamonds, and Forevermark U.S. Inc. President Charles Stanley, said their companies charge a premium for their products because they believe there are people who are willing to pay for the assurance of owning an ethically sourced diamond.

Stanley noted that there will come a “tipping point” when the origin of products will become an issue across the board.

But Andrea Hansen, CEO of Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry, said from their viewpoint, the consumer hasn’t reached that point yet. Rather than attach a premium to their ethically sourced merchandise, the company takes a lower margin. “I don’t see on the retail level yet that the consumer is willing to pay that much more for the product,” she said.

Read more.

At Joseph Schubach Jewelers, we pride ourselves in using eco-friendly materials. Read more about our practices.

What can you say about this incredible piece of art but…wow. The Swiss jeweler Shawish has created a ring  made entirely of one 150-carat diamond.

The ring, valued at approximately $68 million, was unveiled last year in London.

“A ring made entirely of a faceted diamond has always seemed like a fantasy,” Mohamed Shawish, president of Geneva-based Shawish Jewellery, according to press materials. “To create the perfect diamond ring is the epitome of art.”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/fashion/diamond-ring-made-bling-150-carat-bauble-fetch-68m-article-1.1049818#ixzz1rg1IBDJ4

CHARLES & COLVARD LAUNCHES ENHANCED FOREVER BRILLIANTTM MOISSANITE GEMSTONES AND ANNOUNCES EXCLUSIVE PARTNERSHIP WITH SERENITY TECHNOLOGIES

MORRISVILLE, N.C. – January 27, 2012 – Charles & Colvard, Ltd. (NASDAQ Global Select Market: CTHR), the sole manufacturer of created moissanite gemstones, The Most Brilliant Jewel in the World®, today announced that it has exclusively partnered with Serenity Technologies, Inc., one of the world’s notable laboratories for gemstone enhancements, to create moissanite gemstones with optical properties that are remarkably whiter and brighter than ever before. Charles & Colvard is introducing these enhanced gemstones as FOREVER BRILLIANTTM, a new premier brand of Charles & Colvard Created Moissanite®, available on its e-commerce site Moissanite.com and soon through its current distributors.

In creating the FOREVER BRILLIANTTM gemstone, Charles & Colvard hand selects and expertly polishes only the world’s finest moissanite. Then, through a proprietary process using extraordinary, cutting-edge twenty-first century technology, Serenity Technologies transforms each stone to a higher standard of the Gemological Institute of America’s near-colorless spectrum, up to four color grades whiter.
“As a former jewelry retailer, I recognized the importance of being able to market a whiter gem and sought to provide one since joining Charles & Colvard. Serenity Technologies provided the solution that best maintains the integrity of our moissanite gemstone and I’m excited to be able to bring FOREVER BRILLIANTTM gems to market, opening a whole new chapter for moissanite sales,” stated Randy N. McCullough, Chief Executive Officer of Charles & Colvard, Ltd. “Consumers around the globe will be astonished at the transformation of our gemstone that is up to four color grades whiter. I can’t imagine a better platform for launching new jewelry brands that provide an affordable luxury experience like no other.”
Dr. Suneeta Neogi, President of Serenity Technologies, Inc., commented, “While moissanite can easily withstand very high temperatures and its covalent bonding, similar to diamond, allows it to withstand very high pressures, moissanite crystal does not respond to HPHT treatments in a fashion similar to Type IIa (virtually nitrogen-free) diamonds that can become near colorless after such treatments. Serenity has developed a radically different proprietary process of whitening moissanite that greatly improves the color and brilliance of moissanite without any residual negative effects. This partnership between Charles & Colvard and Serenity brings the best opportunity for consumers worldwide to experience this exciting new product with confidence, knowing that it is brought to the market directly from the sole manufacturer of created moissanite gems.”
300 Perimeter Park Drive, Suite A Morrisville, North Carolina 27560 919.468.0399
Company Contact:
Timothy Krist
Chief Financial Officer
919.468.0399, ext. 295
tkrist@charlesandcolvard.com
Investor Relations:
Christopher Schreiber
Taglich Brothers, Inc.
Investor Relations Counsel
800.383.8464
cs@taglichbrothers.com
Charles & Colvard Created Moissanite®
Made of silicon carbide (SiC) and exhibiting overall properties that are close to that of diamonds but with nearly 2.5 times the fire of diamond, moissanite’s superior brilliance, luster, and optical properties rival even the highest quality diamonds. Created moissanite gemstones possess the quality, value, and resilience of fine diamonds while offering much more affordable price points. In partnership with Serenity Technologies, Charles & Colvard is bringing to the marketplace its exclusive trademarked brand of whiter moissanite gemstones – FOREVER BRILLIANTTM.
Limited Lifetime Warranty and Certificate of Authenticity
Charles & Colvard and Serenity Technologies are committed to ensuring the quality and longevity of FOREVER BRILLIANTTM gems. Each stone will be accompanied by a Charles & Colvard certification and laser inscribed on the girdle for easy identification. FOREVER BRILLIANTTM moissanite gemstones carry the same Limited Lifetime Warranty as all other Charles & Colvard Created Moissanite® gemstones for maintaining their optical property of brilliance.
The process developed by Serenity Technologies is the only color alteration process that is included under Charles & Colvard’s Limited Lifetime Warranty. Any other third-party alterations or treatments made to moissanite created gemstones are not supported by either Charles & Colvard or Serenity Technologies.
About Charles & Colvard, Ltd.
Charles & Colvard, Ltd., based in the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina, is the global sole source of moissanite, a unique, near-colorless created gemstone that is distinct from other gemstones and jewels based on its exceptional fire, brilliance, luster, durability, and rarity. Charles & Colvard Created Moissanite® is currently incorporated into fine jewelry sold through domestic and international retailers and other sales channels. Charles & Colvard, Ltd. is headquartered in Morrisville, North Carolina, and its common stock is listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “CTHR.” For more information, please visit www.charlesandcolvard.com.
About Serenity Technologies, Inc.
Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Temecula, California, Serenity Technologies has focused on bringing new ideas and innovation to emerging technologies that have potential for large-scale application. Serenity’s strong portfolio of intellectual property and diversification strategies have helped develop innovative products having wide commercial application. These products cover a gamut of fields relating to color enhancement technologies for diamonds and other gem materials, protective treatment technologies for precious metals and alloys, nanocrystalline diamond coatings, hydro-oleophobic treatments for gems and jewelry, personalization and branding of jewelry articles, micro-marking of diamonds, revolutionary chemical-mechanical polishing technology for diamonds, analog archival, custom optics, and beam-based polishing, to name a few. For more information, please visit www.serenitytechnology.com.
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Statements expressing expectations regarding our future and projections relating to products, sales, revenues, and earnings are typical of such statements and are made under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about our plans, objectives, representations, and contentions and are not historical facts and typically are identified by use of terms such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “could,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “continue,” and similar words, although some forward-looking statements are expressed differently.
All forward-looking statements are subject to the risks and uncertainties inherent in predicting the future. You should be aware that although the forward-looking statements included herein represent management’s current judgment and expectations, our actual results may differ materially from those projected, stated, or implied in these forward-looking statements as a result of many factors including, but not limited to, our dependence on consumer acceptance and growth of sales of our products; our dependence on third parties for the sales and marketing of our products to end consumers; dependence on a limited number of customers; our current customers’ potential perception of us as a competitor in the finished jewelry business; general economic and market conditions, including the current economic environment; dependence on Cree, Inc. as the current supplier of the raw material; intense competition in the worldwide jewelry industry; the financial condition of our major customers; risks of conducting business in foreign countries; the pricing of precious metals, which is beyond our control; our ability to protect our intellectual property; and possible adverse effects of governmental regulation and oversight, in addition to the other risks and uncertainties described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2010 and subsequent reports filed with the SEC. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. We undertake no obligation to update or revise such statements to reflect new circumstances or unanticipated events as they occur except as required by the federal securities laws, and you are urged to review and consider disclosures that we make in the reports that we file with the SEC that discuss other factors relevant to our business.
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