Editor's Blog | Jewellery Focus

Aug- 2014 -

26 August

Now comes the real test for Jason Holt’s apprenticeships vision

It was always an ambitious undertaking, trying to draw a single thread between dozens of craft skills and come up with a qualification that could effectively test the talents of everything from furniture makers to piano tuners (not to mention jewellery, of course). His task involved a huge amount of…

19 August

Michael Northcott

Endless Jewelry’s new investors are a magic bullet…if it were needed

They always say ‘growing too fast’ can be the ruin of a business, and the former Pandora-man, Danish Jesper Nielsen, has obviously heard this too, as it has been announced that Endless Jewelry has raised significant investment capital by selling 23% of the business to some external investors. Realistically, it is…

12 August

Michael Northcott

Why you should join the Fairtrade goldsmiths scheme

One of the most frustrating things about CSR initiatives in any industry is the cost and effort involved in doing your bit. It’s why CSR departments in big corporates have huge difficulty achieving ‘buy-in’ from the rest of the board of directors. But what if most of the legwork had…

5 August

Michael Northcott

UKTI? Now THAT is a useful brand partnership

Corporate tie-ups are normally so much hot air and uselessness. But IJL’s decision to partner with UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) suggests the organisers are genuinely looking for function, not flare, in the show’s latest iteration. The buyers in any industry quickly get tired of the small handful of big…

Jul- 2014 -

29 July

Michael Northcott

The luxury goods market is buoyant – it’s time to stop blaming the economy

When luxury goods giant LVMH announces that handbags and belts at £1000+ a piece are doing better than watches and jewellery, you have to ask what is going on. The West, in its entirety, has become obsessed with the notion that economic weakness is to blame for poor sales in…

22 July

Michael Northcott

18 months is a swift turnaround to conjoin the two associations

Amongst the more sceptical jewellers out there, for a decade the subject of the trade associations merging has drawn sarcasm and mirth in equal measure. But in a candid interview with newly elected NAG chairman, Andrew Hinds, I discovered how closely the two bodies appear to be co-operating. One of the aims…

8 July

Michael Northcott

Falling vacancy rates are yet another beam of light

Rather excitingly, this week brought the news that high street retail vacancy rates are at their lowest since June 2010 – right at the height of the recession. As I have said before on this blog (enough times on this blog to be accused of sounding like a broken record),…

1 July

Michael Northcott

Optimistic students need to listen to the industry stalwarts

Young artists are naturally full of optimism. After all, they are pursuing their dreams, and if they don’t believe in themselves, goodness knows it’s an uphill battle making others have faith. Perhaps it is no surprise therefore that 90% of jewellery students are “confident of finding employment in the creative…

Jun- 2014 -

24 June

Michael Northcott

British jewellery needs plenty more of the Beaverbrooks attitude

So often when you attend a talk or seminar at the trade shows, or even at after-dinner speeches, there is mention of how the industry needs to pull together, support new talent, and revitalise itself from within. It is therefore encouraging to witness a growing number of initiatives, with IJL’s kickstarter, growing apprenticeship…

10 June

Michael Northcott

Mondaine finds British marketing device in John Lewis

The best marketing is that which doesn’t force the message down your throat. Better still, it should say something other than ‘buy our product’. Consumers are good at identifying marketing techniques so it is the job of the agencies to come up with something that offers more than the product itself. That’s…