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What will become of the KP?

When Brad Brooks-Rubin, the special advisor on conflict diamonds to the U.S. State Department, spoke about how the United States would remain vigilant on monitoring conflict diamonds even if the Kimberley Process (KP) fell apart, I thought he was speaking theoretically.

Looking back on that panel discussion now, I am beginning to think he was speaking prophetically.

Just a couple of weeks removed from the discussion, which was held during the Las Vegas shows, the industry finds itself in a very familiar place. Yet another scheduled KP meeting has ended without being able to come to a consensus on the issue of rough exports from the Marange region of Zimbabwe.

According to sources close to the negotiations, the United States, Canada, Australia, Israel and the Europe Union lined up on one side of the debate. They wouldn’t agree to the Marange deal unless it included some kind of mechanism for supervising exports from an area once (and still perhaps) riddled with human rights abuses and rampant diamond smuggling.

“This was the major stumbling block,” the source said.

On the other side of the debate, Zimbabwe, backed by nations including South Africa, equates constant monitoring of rough exports from Marange with colonialism and wants no part of it. (Interestingly, Russia, along with China and India--two countries consistently mentioned as having a keen interest in the Marange goods--reportedly did not take sides at the intersessional.)

And that’s how the deal ends, at 2 p.m. in the afternoon on Thursday afternoon. Officials from the DRC, which hosted the intersessional as current chair of the KP, came in and said time was up, the meeting was over.

No resolution was reached, again. So where does this leave the industry? It’s not an easy question to answer.

Both Jewelers of America and the World Diamond Council (WDC) have said publicly that goods from Marange shouldn’t be traded as the KP officially remains at an impasse. WDC President Eli Izhakoff stressed in a statement that the meeting didn’t end with “any parties slamming the door on the KP.” Efforts are ongoing (and seemingly never-ending at this point) to arrive at a consensus.

In the meantime, certain parties in the industry seem to be busy making other plans, regardless of whether the KP makes it or not.

Rewinding to the KP panel discussion held in Las Vegas, Brooks-Rubin mentioned the possibility that in the United States, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which already contains a section addressing “conflict” minerals, could be expanded to address the issue of conflict diamonds.

He also said that “if the KP falls apart” the U.S. government would remain vigilant about conflict diamonds. “Congress won’t simply repeal the Clean Diamond Trade Act and say, ‘That was a nice experiment. Let’s go back to the way things were,’” he said.

Ribbon necklaces lock in a cause

We love anything for a good cause here at National Jeweler, so I was excited to find out that DeLatori is introducing “Lockets for a Cause,” a group of 18-karat gold-plated sterling silver necklaces that are marked with meaningful colored enamel ribbons on the interior.




Ranging in price from $625 - $750, a portion of all proceeds will benefit the causes of breast cancer awareness, heart disease research (below) and supporting our troops.




Ori Zemer, co-founder of DeLatori, said the lockets were designed in the brand’s signature style with a 21st century feel, and “the hidden charity ribbon can be revealed with just a click, reminding us all of what we should keep close to our hearts.”




The lockets are slated to debut nationally in the fall, and DeLatori plans to work closely with individual retailers to tie in local charities and events to the collection. An initial package of three ribbon colors will be available to retail partners, with a wide range of possibilities for custom lockets.

Yellow melee = caution

While in Carlsbad, Calif. for Gemological Institute of America’s (GIA) Symposium last month, the never-shy Martin Rapaport twice publicly named one specific high-end jeweler for selling what could be high-pressure, high-temperature-treated (HPHT) yellow melee in their stores.

As a reporter, my ears perk up when I hear comments such as these. Does Rapaport, an industry veteran, have the inside scoop on jewelry’s next big scandal? Does he know about a big, complicated lawsuit that involves pouring over hundreds pages of dense court documents until you go cross-eyed?

As it turns out, no. Rapaport later said he had no evidence that this particular jeweler was selling HPHT-treated yellow melee. He was simply calling to light an issue that has arisen in the industry and could impact any jeweler: HPHT-treated yellow melee.

HPHT-treated yellow melee (pictured below) is more difficult to identify as being treated than irradiated yellow melee, said Tom Moses, GIA’s senior vice president of laboratory and research. The instrumentation needed to detect HPHT-treated yellow melee is a bit more sophisticated and, visually, they do not stand out as being treated.

Yellow melee treated with irradiation takes on more of a “taxi-cab yellow” tone (a comparison I can appreciate fully living in New York City) while the HPHT-treated yellow melee “blends in more,” Moses said. He added that yellow HPHT-treated melee also more closely resembles its natural counterparts than HPHT-treated blue or pink melee, which tends to look unnaturally bright.

“There’s no question it can create a big challenge,” he said. “The colors produced with that kind of treatment overlap pretty well with colors that occur naturally. An unsuspecting person that deals in this kind of thing could, in fact, be fooled.”

As many of you already know, HPHT has been around for a number of years but, in industry-treatment terms, is a relatively new process. The trend toward using the treatment on smaller stones is on that has increased in recent years as the process has evolved, spreading first to natural colored diamonds and then to smaller and smaller diamonds.

“Not every large stone is an acceptable candidate for the (HPHT) process,” Moses said. “When you run out of those stones, you look to do other things.”

His advice for the industry: deal with people you trust. Know your suppliers well enough to know that you’re not being sold HPHT-treated goods that aren’t identified as such.

Unless you have 100 percent confidence in your supplier, then submit a random sample of yellow melee to a well-equipped and well-staffed grading lab for testing.

Jewelers should check with their preferred lab to see what kind of, if any, testing services are available for melee and to make sure the lab has the necessary equipment to detect HPHT-treated melee.

Celebrity Jewelry Gawk™ - Classy, colorful looks

It’s all earrings and bangles these days with celebrities, and while we’ve got the traditional white-gold and diamond look happening, more stars are hitting the red carpet in colored gems.

Twilight star Ashley Greene (below) was seen wearing bangles and earrings by M.C.L. by Matthew Campbell Laurenza to a ball in Los Angeles. The star's earrings are made with colored sapphires ($670) and her bangles include the orange enamel abstract ($2,000), the pave art deco ($1,845), the futuristic deco ($2,345), the dotted bangle with semiprecious stones ($895), and the green sapphire bangle ($1,650).







Vanessa Minnillo’s (below) Adeler earrings are made from 14-karat yellow gold with chalcedony cabochon stones ($3,695).






Jennifer Lopez (below, top) wore a Brumani ring (below, middle) in 18-karat white gold with diamonds ($4,614) and a Katerina Maxine Victorian scroll ring (below, bottom) in 18-karat white gold with a ruby center stone ($16,780) to a gala in New York City.








Halle Berry’s (below) 18-karat gold and diamond Bavna hoop earrings ($7,500) shined at the “Beauty Culture” exhibition at the Annenberg Space for Photography.



American actress Aimee Teegarden (below) wore Brumani’s “Maitan Black” earrings in 18-karat white and black gold with round diamonds ($7,821) to the 2011 Young Hollywood Awards.






Nick Cannon (below) wore ELYSEE’s classic automatic watch ($850) while filming America’s Got Talent. The watch is made in rose gold stainless steel on a black leather strap, and features a black dial, moon phases and automatic movement.




   

American sportscaster Erin Andrews (below) accessorized with Diamond in the Rough chandelier earrings with pave diamond accents ($25,000) while attending the 36th Annual Gracie Awards Gala in Beverly Hills.





Demi Moore (below) wore M.C.L. by Matthew Campbell Laurenza’s large pave link dangling earrings ($812) to Samsung’s “Hope for Children” gala held in New York City last week.




Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (below) donned Links of London’s effervescence stiletto earrings to the Ark Gala Dinner, the royal couple’s first official public engagement as newlyweds.





Tamera Mowry (below) wed FOX news correspondent Adam Housley dressed in jewelry from Erica Courtney. Mowry’s chose platinum flower basket earrings with white topaz and diamonds ($24,000) and a platinum Moulin rose-cut fancy color 10-carat diamond necklace ($90,000) for the day.




Emma Roberts (below) wore Amrapali Victorian diamond stud earrings ($5,690) to Landmark’s Sunshine Cinema in New York City.

Diamond dollars decorate Couture

As I returned to my hotel room in Las Vegas last Friday evening, ending my exciting day on the tradeshow floor at Couture, I noticed that an envelope with my name on it had been slid under my door.

Upon opening it, I found an ambiguous note and a dollar bill with a bright pink diamond drawn onto the center, just like the one below.



After a day or two of investigating, I found that fine jewelry designer and Couture exhibitor Erica Courtney was behind it, releasing 250 “diamond dollar” bills all around the Wynn. They were slipped under hotel room doors, taped to bathroom stalls, adhered to water bottles and windshields and spread around the show floor.



Free Humanity, an elusive Los Angles-based street artist with the mission statement of “Taking back the Humanity stolen from our minds by social manipulation and planting seeds of positivity through art and consciousness,” designed the bills.

“My love for street art inspired me to track down the elusive “Free Humanity” to create something amazing and fun for Couture,” Courtney said. “I just loved adding excitement, and bringing a little piece of my heart to the show.”

Each Free Humanity distributed at Couture features a drawing of a colored diamond, is numbered and signed by the artist and is stamped with Courtney’s motto, “Live & Love Life.” Each Free Humanity $1 is valued at $50 or more, and are considered collector’s items.



“I had Free Humanity put ‘Live & Love Life’ on the bills because it’s been on my invoice since I started my business 27 years ago,” Courtney shared.

I’ve opted to frame my diamond dollar, a colorful reminder of my first Couture trip and a rare piece of street art. Who knows where Free Humanity may turn up next …

Preaching to the KP choir?

A number of interesting points came up last Thursday in Las Vegas during a Kimberley Process (KP) panel held at the JCK show. I just wish there had been more people there to hear them.

To open the meeting, World Diamond Council President Eli Izhakoff told attendees that he believes the KP soon will be able to come to an agreement over exports from Zimbabwe. (The KP’s Working Group on Monitoring approved exports from the country based on a number of conditions at a meeting held recently in Dubai. Zimbabwe rejected those conditions but the stalemate is expected to be resolved -- and exports allowed to continue -- at a KP meeting scheduled for later this month.)

During the discussion, Izhakoff raised the need for KP reforms, namely to establish some kind of permanent staff for the system and change the voting structure. Currently, the KP’s bylaws dictate that complete consensus is needed to move forward on any issue. Izhakoff said the system needs to be changed to allow a supermajority vote (a vote that exceeds a simple majority, which is more than 50 percent) to be enough for issues to be approved.

To me, the whole voting system issue is a giant Catch-22.

How are you going to get everybody to vote for switching the voting system when the center of your argument is that the KP has a difficult time moving forward on issues for that same reason: that it can’t get everybody on the same page? Perhaps some parties at all times--or maybe we should say all parties at some times--view complete consensus as working in their favor. They don’t like a proposal or issue and all they have to do is raise their hand and say “no.” It takes only one vote to throw a wrench into the entire system.

It seems to me that if those involved in the KP believed that they could reach a consensus on the voting issue, which has been afoot for some time now, then the issue would have been solved long ago.

Outside of Izhakoff, Brad Brooks-Rubin, the special advisor on conflict diamonds to the U.S. State Department, raised an interesting possibility when he mentioned that the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which already contains a section addressing the issue of “conflict” minerals, could be expanded to include diamonds. He also noted that if the KP did break down, the U.S. government would remain vigilant about conflict diamonds.

“If the KP falls apart Congress won’t simply repeal the Clean Diamond Trade Act and say, ‘That was a nice experiment. Let’s go back to the way things were,’” he said.

Susan Jacques, a Zimbabwe native and the president and CEO of Borsheims, added frank insight from the retail perspective when she detailed how she called her suppliers and told them Borsheims wouldn’t be dealing in any diamonds from Zimbabwe. She said the suppliers told her that she was unfamiliar with how the supply chain works and that it was going to be nearly impossible to guarantee that because of the lack of traceability.

Her response to them: Change the system.

“I cannot control what the government of my homeland does,” she said. “Can I control that I don’t want those goods in my store? Yes I can.”

(It’s probably worth noting here that Borsheims is one of a handful of retailers already involved in De Beers’ branded diamond program, the Forevermark. One of the main highlights of the program is that De Beers can essentially trace the stones from its mines to market and guarantee they are conflict-free.)

The one bright spot on the panel were the comments of Diamond Empowerment Fund board co-president Dr. Benjamin Chavis, who said that activist and former President of South African Nelson Mandela is firm believer in the mission of the KP.

Chavis also cited a report that came out last month detailing the strongest economies in Africa. The nations topping the list were those that produce diamonds, he said.

“When a consumer buys diamonds they should also know they are buying diamonds that help empower African nations, and that message sometimes gets lost,” he said. “The issue is not whether or not we need the Kimberley Process but how to strengthen it.”

Looking around the room during Thursday’s discussion, I was pleased—and at the same time dismayed—that I recognized many of the faces. I saw a number of my fellow industry trade journalists, representatives from groups such as the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) and diamond dealers I know from 47th Street, among others.

With the room only about half-full, and many of the attendees immediately recognizable to me, I had to wonder: How many retailers actually attended this session? And, if they didn’t come because they were busy with other appointments or simply don’t think it’s a big issue for their store, how many will read this blog?

On May 24, I blogged about the Forevermark. At the conclusion of the piece, I asked retailers for feedback on how important they felt the issue of the KP and conflict-free diamonds were to their customers. I received only one comment. And stories about Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe or the Kimberley Process rarely show up as the “Most Popular” or “Most E-mailed” on NJ’s site.

I’ll be curious to see if this blog is any different.

Charles Stanley’s notes on Forevermark

After speaking with Forevermark CEO Stephen Lussier in London a few weeks ago, Charles Stanley, who heads De Beers’ branded diamond program here in the United States, took some time last week to provide more specifics on how Forevermark will work in the U.S. market.

This upcoming week marks a big one for the launch of Forevermark here, as De Beers will unveil the marketing plans for its branded diamond to retailers at the Las Vegas jewelry shows.

Forevermark already is available via pilot sale programs at two retailers, Borsheims in Omaha, Neb. and five San Diego-area Ben Bridge Jewelers.

Forevermark will launch in the fourth quarter. Though Lussier said that he’s more concerned with doing it right then rushing to market before the program’s ready, a Forevermark executive told me they are “definitely” launching in the United States at the end of the year and will be sharing their plans with Forevermark retailers in Las Vegas.

Retailers will be able to sell Forevermark jewelry online (and in fact they already are). But they won’t be allowed to sell Forevermark loose diamonds on the Internet, Stanley said. And the price of the online product has to be the same as what they are charging in the store. Stanley said he doesn’t seem inter-market competition as being a big issue because so much of what drives people to shop online over going to stores these days is price--which won’t be an issue here--and because retailers have the freedom to create their own designs. A customer that sees a piece they like at Jeweler A won’t necessarily be able to find that same design and buy it online from Jeweler B.

He added that the nature of the program, which includes a viewer customers can use to see the Forevermark inscription, lends itself to more in-store sales and that’s where he expects jewelers to do the majority of Forevermark business.

“We’re not frankly expecting a lot of diamond sales to be made online. We fundamentally believe that to get the full experience of buying a diamond it needs to be done in store,” he said.

Discounting is a no-no. Stanley said there are clauses in the retailers’ contracts that pertain to discounting. And though he wouldn’t say if markdowns are strictly forbidden, he did say this: “We don’t see this as a product that should be heavily discounted or marked down.”

The cost of the program is...$10,000 per year for a store.

De Beers doesn’t see Forevermark as conflicting with the De Beers Diamond Jewellers stores it operates through a joint venture with LVMH. Forevermark enables retailers to use the equity of the De Beers Group name and extend it to their customers through a separate brand, Stanley said. He said one element of the program that further sets Forevermark apart is the fact that each of these diamonds go through the Forevermark Diamond Institute (FDI) in Antwerp.

I actually had the chance to visit FDI while in Europe a couple of weeks ago, and it was an interesting operation to be sure. The Institute housed about 5,000 loose stones on two floors and about 500 a day go through the process of becoming Forevermark diamonds, complete with the brand’s signature inscription.

Each diamond goes through a total of 27 steps to make sure it meets Forevemark standards, is not treated and gets inscribed. Forevermark standards dictate that a stone must be at least very good cut, L color (all colors are accepted for stones that are two carats or larger in size) or fancy colored, and SI2 clarity. De Beers will supply a Forevermark-branded grading report to customers that want them though it is not mandatory.

Stanley said there is a “clear light” between De Beers-branded stores and its branded diamond. He also noted that Forevermark diamonds won’t be offered in De Beers’ stores.

Here’s one last item regarding the jewelers that are already carrying Forevermark. Lussier told me that’s it’s “just a coincidence” that both retailers currently carrying Forevermark--Ben Bridge and Borsheims--are both Berkshire Hathaway-owned jewelers. Just in case anybody was wondering...

Celebrity Jewelry Gawk™

The 64th Annual Cannes Film Festival in France this month gave celebrities a red carpet chance to show off their jewels, while events in New York City and California called for diamond- (and pearl) studded stars.

Here’s some of the best of celebrity jewelry that’s come my way this week.

Actress Rachel McAdams (below) wore Amrapali jewelry to the Cannes Film Festival, accessorizing with three of the brand’s diamond bracelets, which retail between $5,000 and $15,000.

 
 
 
 
Chopard was a common choice among celebrities attending Cannes. Spanish actress Penelope Cruz (below) wore a white gold and ruby bracelet paired with matching earrings.

 
Israeli model Bar Refaeli (below) chose Chopard diamond chandelier earrings set in 18-karat white gold and two diamond rings, both featuring 20 carats of emerald-cut diamonds and set in 18-karat white gold.

 
Uma Thurman (below) chose a pair of Chopard white gold chandelier earrings set with 34 pear-shaped emeralds together with an emerald bracelet.

 

Jane Fonda (below) selected a Chopard white gold necklace with diamonds and a 160-carat cushion-shaped blue sapphire pendant paired with a gold ring set with diamonds to Cannes.

 
English model Alexa Chung (below) accessorized with a Chopard platinum and diamond necklace with a 80-carat pear-shaped brown-yellow diamond pendant, as well as a white gold butterfly ring set with diamonds.

 

Indian actress Aishwarya Rai (below) wore a pair of Chopard’s 18-karat white gold earrings set with pear-shaped diamonds and pink fancy-cut diamonds, a white gold bracelet set with brown fancy-cut diamonds and a white gold ring set with diamonds and an emerald-cut diamond.

 
Rosario Dawson (below) was seen wearing a Baccarat Galet Cristal onyx bracelet to a Belvedere RED party in Cannes, France. The bracelet retails for $445.

 

 
Angelina Jolie (below) accessorized with her own design, a 50-carat emerald bracelet comprising 14 Colombian vivid green emeralds, to Cannes, France in May. She paired it with a matching 9-carat Colombian emerald set in a cushion setting of yellow gold. The actress’s jewelry line, Style of Jolie, is a collaborative collection with jeweler Robert Procop.

 
 
Australian actress Yvonne Strahovski (below) wore with Kabana earrings and an Adeler ring to a New York event, retailing for $8,662 and $5,690, respectively.

 
 
 

Melissa Joan Heart (below) chose Adeler 14-karat white gold drop earrings with diamonds for a press event in California. The earrings retail for $12,994.

 
 
Singer, songwriter and dancer Nicole Scherzinger (below) rocked sterling silver and Mother of Pearl Misaki bangles in New York City. The bangles retail for $439 each.