Column: Where do we go from here?

In this age of extremely casual dress, what the jewelry industry needs is for the big retailers to step up and create an advertising campaign showing people wearing their diamond jewelry with blue jeans, jeweler and columnist Jim Alperin writes.

Michelle Graff michelle.graff@nationaljeweler.com

The fact that the diamond business is going through a difficult period is no longer a surprise to any of us in the jewelry business. Prices have fallen, businesses are closing and others are just “getting by” instead of thriving.

Retailer Jim Alperin owns James Alperin Jewelers in Pepper Pike, Ohio. He can be reached at alpjewel@aol.com.It’s easy to blame the economy for the downturn. The middle class hasn’t seen its wages increase since the recession ended some years ago. Stock portfolios haven’t increased as they have in past years. There are mortgages, college tuition and car leases to pay. People just haven’t felt good about going out and making that major purchase--one in the $2,000 to $5,000 range--that once was the backbone of the independent jeweler’s business.

Then, of course, there is the electronic revolution. A family of four would rather go out and buy a new big-screen TV for the entire family to enjoy or a new computer or “i-device” than buy Mom a ring that only she will wear, and the rest of the family only get to look at on her hand. It’s been said that today, jeweler’s biggest competition isn’t from other jewelers but from electronics.

But the one factor that I feel is taking more money out of our business than any other is not the economy or the electronic revolution, but the fact that our society has become extremely casual.

I can remember when I was young. I’m giving away my age here, but when my mother went downtown she wore white gloves. Today, of course, sweatsuits and athletic shoes can be seen in every office doorway during cigarette breaks.

You don’t need a diamond ring or sapphire pendant to have a cigarette with your work pals. It’s everywhere--you can wear blue jeans to almost any fine restaurant today and, frankly, while I’m writing this I’m wearing them. So where do we go from here to counter the trend?

The old saying goes, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” What we need to do as an industry is make people want to wear fine jewelry with casual clothes.

The days of dressing up are gone, and they took wearing fine jewelry with them. A number of years ago, when De Beers still was mostly in control of the diamond industry, we had N.W. Ayer and the Diamond Promotion

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Service to promote diamonds to the public.

Today we don’t have them to spend the millions of dollars that they once did to promote diamonds, but we do have their replacements. Now they need to be convinced to begin an advertising campaign promoting diamonds as casual wear. And who are “they?” They are the people who turned brown diamonds into “chocolate” and made a once undesirable, off-color diamond suddenly something that women across the country wanted--the majors.

The major retailers need to run an advertising campaign with young, attractive people who are casually dressed while drinking coffee, hanging out or doing other activities that the younger crowd enjoys while wearing fine jewelry. Jewelry has to become casual in order to survive and flourish with the next generation.

Wearing jewelry should be an everyday thing, not reserved just for occasions like a wedding or the holidays. The small independents don’t have the budget to push the world in that direction but could ride on the coattails of the majors if they began the campaign.

We need to make jewelry more democratic, something that has been happening in our industry for hundreds of years.

Once, only royalty and nobles could wear precious stones but as the merchant class became wealthier, they too began to want to own jewelry. The electronic age simply has sped up this ongoing process of democratization. If we are to keep up we need to begin a strong, industry-wide advertising campaign for wearing fine jewelry as a casual, daily accessory that matches today’s casual lifestyle.

Retailer Jim Alperin owns James Alperin Jewelers in Pepper Pike, Ohio. He can be reached at alpjewel@aol.com.

Michelle Graffis the editor-in-chief at National Jeweler, directing the publication’s coverage both online and in print.