As we’ve done for the past five years, JCK is bringing you the 40 most interesting, insightful, and thought-provoking jewelry-related quotes of the year gone by.
2024’s batch touches on everything from hot industry topics, like lab-grown diamonds and the price of gold, to the sad prospect of life without jewelry and the important question of whether this business is full of dorks.
Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were said to JCK.
CELEBRITIES
“One fun fact: Every time I put on jewelry, I blow-dry it because I can’t stand putting on something freezing.”
—Kim Kardashian, on The Kardashians, as quoted by Page Six
“As you get older, you’re like, ‘Okay, what [jewelry] pieces am I going to invest in?’ I’d rather buy fewer things, but things that I can pass down in my family and that I’ll have forever.”
—Zoë Kravitz, to Harper’s Bazaar
“The number of people who come up to me and ask me what [watch] I’m wearing is far greater than the number of people who come up to me and say, ‘Love your music, or how’d you write that song?’”
—John Mayer, in The New York Times
DIAMONDS (LAB-GROWN)
“I don’t think there’s anybody who wasn’t taken aback by the unbelievably precipitous drop in the pricing of rough lab-grown diamonds.… Every quarter, we were expecting it to bottom out and it kept going down.”
—Benny Landa, founder of lab-grown company Lusix, which went bankrupt this year
“In an industry whose mother ship is the idea of eternal love, you don’t want the whole retail pitch to just be that it’s cheaper than the real thing. So the makers of lab-grown found another story: namely, that that the stones are more ethical and greener than natural diamonds. It was a ridiculous claim.”
—author and journalist Matthew Hart in an essay on CrimeReads
“My personal opinion is that [the grading labs] did a disservice to the entire industry by putting the certs of lab-grown next to the certs of mined. My customer walks in and it’s hard for me to tell a story about how these two products are different, when they see the same certs for both. I don’t think the labs should be in [the lab-grown] business, frankly.”
—Daniel’s Jewelers CEO David Sherwood
“When someone is wearing a 4-carat pear, you know that person has dropped $100,000 or $200,000. If tomorrow, that stops being a signifier, you will face a challenge.… If every stone is that big, it just becomes a paperweight.”
—industry analyst Pranay Narvekar at a presentation for India’s Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council
“Because lab-grown diamonds can be produced in abundance, they are less expensive and make larger-size diamonds more affordable. Their relative abundance may not ensure that the value will hold over time.”
—the wording Signet added to its lab-grown diamond invoices
DIAMONDS (NATURAL)
“[The diamond industry has] benefited from a half-century of marketing efforts, from 1939 to 2010. And I think as an industry—and I include De Beers in this—we have taken that for granted too much. We haven’t built enough on the shoulders of our forefathers.”
—De Beers CEO Al Cook, at Facets 2024
“There is no way De Beers is a fit in the [Anglo] portfolio.”
—Duncan Wanblad, CEO of De Beers’ parent company Anglo American, to the Financial Times Mining Summit in London
“De Beers is not a proper mining company. It will be better for De Beers to be outside Anglo because Anglo doesn’t know how to manage it properly. [Anglo CEO] Duncan Wanblad does not understand it and the diamond world. And what you don’t understand, you sell.”
—a former De Beers executive, speaking anonymously
“The natural diamond business has been in a reactive mode for at least 20 years. Everything [is] ‘Woe is me’—first it was blood diamonds, then it’s…the big-box stores, then online. Everything that they did was to react to something that was happening to them and cutting into their business model, instead of looking forward and trying to create new opportunities in the marketplace.”
—cutter Maarten de Witte on the Paul Zimnisky podcast
“Consumers are not educated on natural diamond origins. They believe all diamonds are blood diamonds, and they come from one country, which is ‘Africa.’”
—Olivia Landau, CEO of the Clear Cut, during an Initiatives in Art and Culture panel
“If you don’t have the [diamond screening] policies and protocols and think, ‘I’m good,’ I promise you, you’re not. If you are not verifying your goods to make sure that they are natural, you do not know. I never thought I’d say that, but you don’t.”
—New York City dealer Matthew Schamroth
“When there’s something shiny in your teeth people are like, ‘What is that?’ Isn’t it better to say a diamond than a piece of lettuce?”
—Elan Pinhasov, co-owner of jewelry brand Gabby Elan, to The New York Times
“Diamonds are like God’s smiles.”
—the late diamantaire William Goldberg, quoted during a November event celebrating the release of a Goldberg biography
GEMSTONES
“Once upon a time at AGTA about 25 years ago, the late Nat Vineyard showed a ‘pigeon blood’ ruby to a buyer. To verify the color, the buyer pricked his finger and compared the color of his own blood to the ruby.”
—Martin Rapaport, on LinkedIn
“Miners are people just like us. They want stability in their living conditions, an education for their children, and to put dinner on their table. If we forget that fundamental aspect, and treat them as unknown individuals who happen to be bringing us the world’s greatest gems, we are letting go of what’s truly important and remarkable about our industry.”
—former JCK editor and GIA librarian Robert Weldon
GOLD
“We’ve been very bullish on precious metals for a while…but even we are a little bit puzzled as to the strength of gold.”
—Edmund Shing, chief investment officer at BNP Paribas Wealth Management, on CNBC’s Street Signs Europe
“At the end of the day, [a gold necklace] is still currency. If the world ends, I could break off a few links and get some water and gas.”
—Kether Parker, brand director of Hoorsenbuhs, to The New York Times
THE JEWELRY INDUSTRY
“I like the industry a lot. I like the people…. You don’t deal with stodgy, corporate people…a lot of them are characters actually, and unusual people. They’re not buttoned-down people, most of them, and it’s fun.”
—John Kennedy, the retiring president of Jewelers’ Security Alliance (JSA), to National Jeweler
“I never wanted to join the industry when I was younger because my dad was in it, and my dad’s just, like, so uncool.… [In college] I came to the realization that…maybe my dad’s cooler than I thought and he’s not as big of a dork as I thought…. But he is as big of a dork as I thought. He’s just in a really cool industry being a dork, and it’s cool to be a dork in this industry.”
—Julia Hackman Chafé, social media manager of Intercolor USA, on JCK’s podcast, The Jewelry District
“Nobody needs jewelry to live, but life without jewelry would be sad.”
—Van Cleef & Arpels CEO (now Richemont CEO) Nicolas Bos to CNA Luxury
LUXURY
“The biggest challenge for the luxury industry today is…customer fatigue with a luxury industry that seems increasingly banal.… One could call it the trivialization of luxury; I call it ‘luxury fatigue.’ Customers are tired of being bludgeoned by luxury.”
—Frédéric Grangié, Chanel’s president, watches and fine jewelry, to Swiss newspaper Le Temps, as quoted by Business of Fashion
“The brands that have struggled probably [with Gen Z consumers] are the brands that are more heritage brands. They’ve got such a true sense of who they are, almost to their detriment. They’re too scared to reinvent themselves.”
—Jamie Ray, CEO of marketing agency Buttermilk, to Business Insider
“Luxury is about saying ‘no’ more than saying ‘yes.’ You don’t open too many stores. You don’t invite too many clients to an event. You do a limited edition that is a limited edition, and not 1,000 pieces. At Tiffany, we have a duty to create beauty and amazement. If we can’t do that, we’re just a commodity.”
—Tiffany CEO Anthony Ledru to Prestige Online
“Luxury is a disaster. There is no competition. It’s not a game for everyone, it’s just them. Everywhere you go, they try to kick you out.”
—an unnamed “rival luxury brand CEO,” speaking about LVMH, to Bloomberg
REMEMBERED
“When people go into the jewelry box, they’re going to add a few more bangles, a few more rings, or a few more necklaces. And that’s because of her.”
—jewelry sales and branding consultant Russell Pagliughi on Iris Apfel, who died in March
“Just don’t pass a gemstone from one hand to another and put it on the shelf.… Have a look at it more closely with your gem testing equipment.…We’re so lucky, so privileged to work with gemstones and diamonds as our career.”
—gemologist Alan Hodginkson, who died in August, to a 2023 Accredited Gemologists Association conference
“Sell as you would like to be sold. Treat a first-time customer like a friend in your home. There’s no science. It’s very simple common sense.”
—industry sales trainer Leonard Zell, who died in August
“I don’t care to have [my] work hung on a wall or put in a box on the wall. It’s really wonderful to think that what you’ve made is moving around in the world and isn’t sitting in a corner somewhere.”
—jewelry designer Arline Fisch, who died in August, in a 2001 interview for the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art
“I think that making things with your hands is a human core instinct, a really important part of us, and I think if we pay attention to the tactile power in craft, we will realize those are the best and the purest values to have.”
—jewelry-maker Jan Yager, who died in August, when she appeared on PBS’ Craft in America in 2007
SUSTAINABILITY
“If I hear sustainability report, I think, ‘Hmm, they probably spent more money making that report than they did on the actual sustainability efforts,’ which is very often true.”
—designer Anna Bario of Bario Neal
“Signet aligned on using repurposed as our terminology and not using recycled, because recycled should really only apply to products intentionally diverted from a waste stream. And gold is rarely if ever part of a waste stream.”
—Signet spokesperson Katie Spencer
WATCHES
“We all get attacked every time we launch something new. The haters are mostly people who have never had a Patek and never will.”
—Patek Philippe president Thierry Stern to Bilanz, about criticism of the new Cubitus watch
“It doesn’t matter what I, or anyone, thinks…. Every single Cubitus will sell the moment it touches a retailer’s door. And that’s the world in which we live today.”
—Benjamin Clymer in Hodinkee
“There is a very clear desire for novelty, true novelty, and not just the major mainstream brands’ practice of creating a story out of nothing, such as a new dial color.… If the Swiss made all the shoes, we would all be wearing just three types of shoe and they would all be brown.”
—Rob Nudds, watchmaker and marketing director at Scandinavian brand Arcanaut, to the Financial Times
“Financial analysts are employed by banks; they advise their clients how to invest. They sell shares and make their money on the stock market. That is a completely different business model to ours. We sell watches, not shares. What matters to us is the long-term development of the company, not the short-term nature of the share price.”
—Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek to Swiss newspaper NZZ
“[In the 1960s, Rolex was] still talking about the products and high-quality goods. [Ad agency J. Walter Thompson] said, ‘No, let’s make another story. It’s not only an exceptional watch. It’s an exceptional watch for special people.’… They didn’t talk about the product anymore. They talked about the clients. The people who use Rolex are exceptional. And this put Rolex on very special ground.”
—Pierre‐Yves Donzé, author of Factory of Excellence: The History of Rolex, to Bloomberg
“Trying a watch on always makes a difference. I call it the ‘Do I look fat in this? moment. Get people in front of a mirror. Because they’re never looking at the watch—they’re looking at themselves.”
—an anonymous person from a “family-owned jeweler” in Scotland, quoted in Esquire
Top: Iris Apfel at her home in 2010 (photo: Jonas Gustavsson/Sipa USA/Sipa via AP Images)
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