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A costume jewelry boom lends luster to the fake

September 30th, 2011 Leave a comment Go to comments

FORGET THOSE wisecracks about dime-store pearls. Costume jewelry has finally earned its place in society. And with the move up from below the salt, the price of the fabu lous fake has risen to match its improved status. So much so, that these days a gaudy bauble like those worn by the pound in fashion magazines can cost as much as $500, the going price for a tennis bracelet of cubic zirconia set in 14 karat gold or a Robert Lee Morris sculptured piece in faux gold or silver.

With its new status all but confirmed, everybody’s getting into the faking game. Yves Saint Laurent has signed a deal with Cartier to market his bijoux in the United States, while all over Manhattan’s jewelry district designers are grinding out copies of gems that once belonged to duchesses and queens. Meanwhile at Chanel, one of the original breeding grounds of the fabulous fake, sales have been increasing at a rate of 12 per cent per year the last 5 years, with charm bracelets strung with shoes and handbags hotter than a two-dollar pistol. The sale of the real Windsor jewels in April was the signal for fashion jewelry designers to rush headlong into stores with collections of what they call “estate jewelry,” and now some offer remakes of the trinkets your great-grandmother wore or copies straight from the jewel cases of the rich, royal or renowned.

In fact, any sort of bauble your mind can conjure is available for a price. And despite industry assertions that the average ticket on a piece of costume jewelry is $14.83 at retail, fashion pieces are frequently much higher than that.

One factor is mounting costs, which was one of the reasons cited by veteran designer Kenneth Jay Lane when he licensed his name to Costume Jewelry Co. to produce a less expensive line. The company, formed by former Monet president Marty Krasner, and Patrick McCaffery, former head of the Friendship Collection, will market the collection, called “KJL,” at $15 to $55 retail, thus enabling Lane to get more exposure in department stores. “My goal is to permit every woman to be Cinderella,” Lane said when the new line was announced.

The market in fakes has been booming since gold and silver prices started to soar in the late 1970s, pricing even the most modest fine jewelry out of the grasp of many consumers. Spurred by the expense of precious metals and the anything-goes attitude of fashion, costume shed its poorstepsister image to become the beneficiary of a burst of artistic energy. That move was quickly rewarded with increased sales. Between 1983 and 1986, department-store sales of costume jewelry rose an average 17.5 per cent annually, while overall sales rose an average 6.8 per cent. And, last year, total sales of fashion jewelry amounted to $2.4 billion retail, according to figures supplied by the Marketing Research Corporation of America, with department store sales accounting for 35 per cent, 28 per cent coming from direct distribution companies like Avon, the remainder from flea markets, discounters and other retailers.

According to Carolee Friedlander, the designer whose flamingo brooch was one of the first copies of the Duchess of Windsor’s jewels to hit stores, the primary factor behind higher prices is quality. With dirt-cheap imports from places like Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong accounting for about 30 per cent of the market, many American manufacturers are being forced to try the “qual ity” costume market in order to stay in the game.

“The processes we use are the same as for fine jewelry, even though the materials are not,” said Friedlander. “But we’re working very hard to make sure that our finishes don’t rub off after two wearings, that our stones don’t get cloudy and that they don’t fall out – ever.”

“With intricate design, increased use of pearls, crystal and enamel the cost of producing our jewelry increases,” said Linda Borella, director of sales promotion at Monet. “Every crystal is set by hand, every bit of enameling is done one at a time by hand.”

James Northrop, president of Trifari, added another factor to the cost equation. When a fashionable woman goes to pick out a fake, he explained, she can lay part of the blame for high prices on ready-to-wear designers on both sides of the Atlantic who have decreed that dressing up is “in.”

“What we’re seeing now is two distinct categories of costume jewelry,” said Northrup. “The first is made up of the lean, spare geometric looks that women wear for daytime, the other is the opulent look of colored stones, pearls, crystal and intricate design meant to complement the dressier looks designers have decreed for evening. Such looks are, by their nature, more expensive.”

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