As we have done for the past three years, JCK has collected the thoughts of celebrities, industry pros, and just plain folks on the year’s hot topics—everything from lab-grown diamonds to NFTs to the industry post-COVID—and on jewelry in general.
Below are 40 of the most interesting, most insightful, and in some cases strange jewelry-related quotes we found during the last 12 months—a year that, once again, offered people in the jewelry industry plenty to talk about.
Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were made to JCK or garnered by JCK from primary sources.
Celebrities
“For the most part, people let you down. So I might have to go with [diamonds being a girl’s best friend.]”
—Mariah Carey, People
“These earrings. I get asked all the time about them. The truth is, these are worth just enough for someone to buy me a coffin if I die in a strange place. That’s why sailors used to wear them and that’s why I do.”
—Morgan Freeman on Instagram
“Omg. I’m watching Madonna on Jimmy Fallon and she cannot speak at all. Her grills are literally impeding her ability to speak. It’s insane.”
—Someone on Twitter, who wasn’t a fan of Madonna’s “mouth jewelry”
Companies
“I am in an Arnault sandwich.”
—Tiffany CEO Anthony Ledru, The Wall Street Journal. Ledru works for LVMH chair Bernard Arnault, while Arnault’s son Alexandre heads its product and communications.
“[Winning back control of my company has] been very cathartic. It’s suddenly like being 25 again, other than my body doesn’t work.”
—Theo Fennell, Town & Country
“People didn’t go to Blue Nile for a branded experience. They wanted a big sparkly diamond, a sign of their success. For a lot of buyers, there was a video game element to it. They wanted to win. They would spend hours with the spreadsheets finding the best deal for a diamond.”
—A former Blue Nile employee
Diamonds
“I did other accounts [at N.W. Ayer], but I was always fascinated by diamonds.… I could never get that excited about some of the accounts I was working on at Ayer, where we’d have three-week-long meetings about what words to say on the packaging.”
—Retiring De Beers executive vice president for brands and consumer markets Stephen Lussier
“Once AGS Laboratories closes, there will be no diamond grading laboratory that grades to the AGS Diamond Grading Standards.”
—A post on the AGS Laboratories site, following the announcement the lab is closing
“We see streetwear as the next big opportunity for diamonds.”
—David Kellie, Natural Diamond Council, Financial Times
Diamonds and Social Responsibility
“What we have [with the Kimberley Process] is not good enough, and we need more.”
—World Diamond Council president Edward Asscher
“I wish [the miners] would come and spend a night in the house so that they actually feel it. Because just mere talking doesn’t make them understand, so they must come and sleep in there.”
—Nickson Zihu, an 81-year-old villager who says he’s feeling adverse effects from a Zimbabwe diamond mine, Voice of America
“Peace is way more valuable than diamonds.”
—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to Belgium’s parliament, urging a ban on Russian diamonds, as quoted by Reuters
Diamonds, Lab-Grown
“Due to supply constraints, these earrings may include natural diamonds.”
—A notice from Kay Jewelers accompanying lab-grown diamond earrings
“There is a certain novelty, and maybe a fad mentality, associated with lab-grown diamonds right now. If you get to the point where it’s not as cool, not as interesting, then it’s just a lower price point piece of jewelry.”
—Industry analyst Paul Zimnisky
“Lab diamonds are not luxury. The whole concept of affordable luxury is an oxymoron.”
—Lab-grown consultant Stanley Wong
“Lab diamonds, it doesn’t seem like they’re that valuable. If you return a real diamond, apparently, people will take it back, and you’ll get money for it. If you return a lab diamond, you have to pay for them to take it back.”
—Comedian Cash Levy at the Indian Diamond and Colorstone Association event at JCK Las Vegas
“Lab-grown is an amazing opportunity for us to venture into segments that we have never ventured into before. Think about the creativity that is possible in this segment.”
—Tanya Nisguretsky, cofounder and CEO of Virtual Diamond Boutique, during a lab-grown panel at JCK Las Vegas
Jewelry and COVID-19
“2021 was really extraordinary, really for the whole [jewelry] industry.… The pie is bigger than any of us thought. We have to think about how we grow from here—and how we make sure this isn’t just a moment.”
—Ben Bridge CEO Lisa Bridge
“Everyone would say that [the last year was] their strongest year of all time, strongest year on record…but it’s like we were dropped out of a helicopter onto third base and we all want to brag that we got a triple.”
—John Carter, CEO of Jack Lewis Jewelers in Bloomington, Ill., at the American Gem Society Conclave
“Through COVID, people couldn’t spend money on travel, on sports events, so they bought jewelry. And once you buy jewelry, and you give it to a person you love, you get the jewelry experience. You think, this is really cool. So, I think our industry will continue to be strong.”
—Jeff Corey, former owner, Day’s Jewelers
“[During lockdown, my clients would] say, ‘I’m in my tracksuit and I’m working remotely, and it’s horrible, and I’m trying to home-school, but your ring’s sitting on my finger, sparkling away, and it’s just making me so happy.’ ”
—British designer Melanie Eddy, The New York Times
Jewelry, the Business
“The jewelry business is a friggin’ blast. It’s the perfect combination of left brain, right brain. You get to interact with people. You get to geek out on the gemological side.”
—Padis Jewelry president Alexis Padis on JCK’s Jewelry District podcast
“If, in the beginning, someone said to me, ‘This is how your career is going to land,’ I would have said, ‘What are you—crazy? That’s not going to happen. I’m going to live in the suburbs and have two kids and a credit card.’ I would have never predicted this in a million years.”
—Former Helzberg Diamonds CEO Beryl Raff, who retired in July
Jewelry, the Object
“In a society that is so busy, one in which we are all quite tied to technology, something about holding and wearing a piece of jewelry inspired by a book or an era from the past feels soulful.”
—Jewelry designer Serena Van Rensselaer
“Hip-hop culture has a great tradition of remixing and customization.… You remixed elements of culture and made it your own, made it a new thing. Jewelry was similar.”
—Vikki Tobak, author of Ice Cold: A Hip-Hop Jewelry History
“The [ring’s] bands are actually thorns. So if she tries to take it off, it hurts.… Love is pain!”
—Colson Baker (aka Machine Gun Kelly), describing the engagement ring he bought Megan Fox, Vogue
“When the ring is the issue, the ring is not the issue.”
—A Reddit commenter, reacting to a story about a woman who felt her ring was too small
Luxury
“[Luxury is] about the client, not about the brand. The brand is simply an enabler of the anticipated perception shift. And it’s almost entirely driven by the story of the brand. No story, no value. It’s that simple.”
—Daniel Langer, CEO of brand strategy company Équité, Jing Daily
“Having symbols of power within your tribe is a powerful thing. Those symbols of power still matter tremendously within the tribes of the ultra-wealthy.”
—Milton Pedraza, founder and CEO of Luxury Institute, CNBC
Remembered
“I really have no sin except for buying jewelry, and I am grateful to GIA for showing me it’s not a sin but a sign of excellent character.”
—Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who died in March, at the GIA Symposium in 2006
“If [reporters] don’t piss someone off occasionally, you’re not doing your job.… Advertisers want to be in JCK precisely because of that level of reader trust. [Angry advertisers will] get over it and they’ll be back.”
—Former JCK editor-in-chief George Holmes, who died in June
“If I get the chance to show something or share something, let the viewer make it themselves, with their eyes and their heart. My signature on it doesn’t mean anything to me. If there’s some sort of great dialogue that happens, how cool is that? To just be able to speak to somebody else, to really get a little deeper than the surface. That’s a big deal.”
—Jewelry artist Daniel Brush, who died in November
“With the sardine can, as with his other creations, [Sidney] Mobell achieves something remarkable. He forces us to see the extraordinary beauty present in what we consider trivial and mundane.”
—Georgetown Voice review of the work of jeweler Sidney Mobell, who died in November
Retail
“Stay close to your customer. As I look at the many strategies, nothing is more important than understanding your customer and why they do business with you.”
—J.C. Penney vice president of marketing Bill Cunningham to the National Retail Federation
Sustainability
“There are a lot of people sticking their noses into the artisanal miners’ world. Imagine if they came from the Third World into our world and said that we could and should be doing things better. We would tell them to bugger off really quickly. We would ask them what the hell do they know?”
—Artisanal miner photographer Hugh Brown
“Recycled gold is just not a great term for the product. When people think of recycling, they think of items that are put in the garbage, like a milk jug.”
—David Siminski, vice president of sales and marketing for United Precious Metal Refining
Technology
“At this stage, we are very much in the real world, selling real products. We are not interested in selling virtual sneakers for 10 euros.”
—LVMH chair Bernard Arnault on the metaverse, CNBC
Watches
“This is earth-shattering. It’s like we woke up in the morning and read the U.S. has bought Canada.”
—Paul Altieri, founder and CEO of Bob’s Watches, on Rolex’s decision to sell certified pre-owned watches
“We’ve reached a point where we’ll have a watch available, and we call a client and say we have a watch, and they say, ‘Yes, I am coming.’ They don’t even ask what model. Whatever we get, they take it.”
—Mohammed Abdulmagied Seddiqi, chief commercial officer of Seddiqi Holding, Bloomberg
“The last thing we want to promote in the watch world is snobbery. If you look down at your wrist and what you see makes you smile, then you have made a good investment.”
—Adrian Hailwood, head of online auction site WatchCollecting.com, Financial Times
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