“It’s a fun experience and lets the bride feel like she is customizing her ring,” says Taylor Burgess, Stuller’s director of bridal. “A lot of people can’t picture what something will look like. Here, they make real-time changes and can see their ring come to life.”
Millennials are a major focus for Dominion Diamond Corp.Ӭ In fact, the Canadian mining company created a consumer digital marketing campaign for its CanadaMark brand to target this particular demographic.
“There are a large group of people, particularly amongst the millennial group, who do care where their diamond comes from and what sort of background it comes with,” Dominion’s executive vice-president for diamonds, James Pounds, said at the company’s cocktail reception.
“We all know the 4 Cs, but I’d like to add two more. The fifth C is ‘confidence.’ A buyer wants to know that what they’re buying has been sourced sustainably. The sixth C is ‘country of origin.’ Millennials are very inquisitive about the product they’re buying.”
On the show floor, stand-out styles spotted among exhibitors’ offerings included front-back earrings, horizontal pendants, two-finger and criss-cross rings, rope and ribbon motifs, geometric shapes, and heavily included stones. Esthetics tended to lean toward classic and vintage designs.
The use of art nouveau in jewellery design is trending strongly, says Ruben Luna, senior vice-president of merchandising for Frederick Goldman. To maintain a connection with its history, the company turned to original drawings from its archive, incorporating intricate designs into the galleries in its latest ArtCarved collection.
“We wanted to look at the heritage of some of our brands to help inspire us to strive for the same kind of esthetic,” says Luna.
Marcel du Montet, Canadian sales director for Kim International, says bridal designs these days are incorporating more colour where metal is concerned. Red gold as an accent colour has been popular for the last several years, but it’s the yellow metal in its purest form that appears to be making a strong comeback. Where bridal showcases were once awash in white metal, yellow gold designs are making their presence known.
The way bridal jewellery is purchased has also changed. The nervous groom making the trek to a jewellery store to pick out a ring may be a less frequent occurrence these days, as more and more couples are choosing to buy it together. Gone also is the idea of the groom spending three months’ salary. “Couples also know more about diamond quality and how rings are manufactured,” du Montet says.
