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There’s a clear trend this year: jewelry has delivered great performances at all the major luxury conglomerates: Richemont, LVMH, and now (again) Kering.
Kering said its jewelry division delivered “an outstanding performance” in the first half of the year, with sales up 15% on a reported basis over last year and 18% on a comp basis.
The company singled out Boucheron for an “exceptional performance, reaching new record levels. Growth remained particularly strong in Japan and Asia Pacific.”
Pomellato “also maintained strong momentum, driven by continued strength in Japan and North America and the sustained success of its key collections. Qeelin “continued to deliver strong growth,” though it posted “softer trends this quarter.” DoDo “recorded a more challenging quarter, against a demanding comparison base,” it said.
In Kering’s earnings call, chief financial officer Armelle Poulou said “we see significant growth potential in jewelry across our fashion houses,” and noted that Gucci just added jewelry to its Times Square flagship.
CEO Luca de Meo later credited jewelry’s success to Kering’s establishing a central industrial platform.
“[We have] a team who is taking care of different topics, including manufacturing standards, suppliers, purchasing, design of engineering the ecosystem of supplier, logistics and quality,” he said. “Which we never had before. The objective being trying to have one approach, a luxury approach to quality. Which, of course, we had here and there … but there was a form of dispersion of the practices and the standards to design.
“I felt … we need[ed] to have a different setup between us and the supplier. We need to decide—and this is what we’re doing—what we make, what we buy in the different categories. We have a plan to reintegrate [almost] double the percentage of things that we produce inside on our plants. … We have something like 37 plants in Italy that are not completely utilized. …When you do this, it’s easier to control the quality standard and to set a methodology of doing it.”
De Beers sales price may be about $1 billion, report says
A new Bloomberg report suggests that De Beers will be sold for about $1 billion—less than half its current valuation:
The current deal structure envisages Global Diamond Consortium—a group led by [former CEO Gareth] Penny and including Namibia, Angola, and some of the world’s biggest diamond traders—paying about $1 billion for Anglo’s 85% stake in De Beers, according to people familiar with situation. About $750 million will be paid upfront, with a further $250 million paid later, the people said.
It should be noted that De Beers requires a lot of upfront capital to keep operating, which may be one thing depressing its sales price.
Kevin Reilly retires from Platinum Guild
Kevin Reilly, who has worked for the industry for 39 years and Platinum Guild International (PGI) for 20, retired as PGI’s senior vice president at the end of last month.
While Reilly says he might do some consulting assignments, he tells The Jewelry Wire he’s more interested in “taking a little time to relax, recharge, ease into retirement. I’m working on some philanthropic things. Right now, I’m looking more into getting back than finding another commercial opportunity for myself.”
He’ll continue to be involved in special events, including serving on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Committee, which he’s done for 48 years.
Before starting at Platinum Guild in 2006, Reilly worked at Lazare Kaplan, Tache, and Macy’s.
He feels proud of all the work he’s done educating people about platinum and encouraging designers to work with the metal. And he feels the jewelry industry will continue to prosper.
“People will always celebrate the bright moments in their life,” he says. “I think that there is enough business out there for everyone.
“I think the industry’s future is bright as long as we concentrate on quality and value. What always intrigued me is the industry’s focus on price. The consumer is willing to pay more for what they want. The reason we don’t get that is because they don’t talk enough about the intrinsic value of our products and metals.”
Anyone who wants to reach out to Reilly can email him at Kevinreilly1116@gmail.com.
BBC: Welsh jewelry shop was AI scam
From the BBC:
Shoppers who thought they were supporting a Welsh jewellery shop say they have lost hundreds of pounds to an artificial intelligence scam.
The customers said they bought items from a website called Seren Cardiff Jewellery but months later no items have arrived – and they have since realized the photos were taken from other sites.
The website claimed to be a Cardiff-based business that was closing down due to “personal reasons”.
It said it was holding a closing-down sale with discounts of up to 80%, urging customers to buy the remaining stock before the business closed for good.
The report quotes a local police inspector as saying AI scams are becoming increasingly common.
“Criminals are using technology such as AI to create websites that appear completely legitimate, making it much harder for consumers to spot a scam,” he told the BBC.
Podcast drop: The Jewelry District talks World Diamond Congress, Ekati shutdown, and Patek Philippe
Victoria Gomelsky and I discuss the recent World Diamond Congress in Singapore, the closure of the Ekati mine, and the legacy of Philippe Stern, the former head of Patek Philippe.
You can listen here or below:
Quote of the day
Amy Odell, on her Back Row Substack, discussed—in a more unfiltered manner than we’re printing here—Bernard Arnault’s decision to respond to the six-part Le Monde series on his business:
As we see time and again in the U.S. with our own ever-looming billionaires, money can buy a lot of things—rockets, couture, boats with foam parties on them, the ability to behave in ways normal people can’t — but it can’t buy you the ultimate luxury: the ability not to give a [damn].
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Today’s daily jewelry links cover Rolex, Bucherer, De Beers, Gem Diamonds, Pomellato, the Basilia watch fair, Lorier Watches, Peter Smith, Queen Victoria, Princess Diana, and Bibi Netanyahu.
