The Winter edition of Italy’s VicenzaOro fair ushers in a year of big, bold color

When Sutra Jewels’ Arpita Navlakha sets up her booth at the VicenzaOro Winter fair (opening Jan. 18), she plans to unpack her “most dramatic pieces…with lots of emphasis on color,” says the Houston-based designer. Think oversize cuts of opals, tanzanite, and paraiba tourmalines from Africa.

The Italian fair, which runs through Jan. 23, routinely kicks off the year’s fine jewelry show circuit and provides a glimpse of the trends expected to dominate the year. The 2014 event will feature upwards of 1,500 exhibitors of finished goods and supplies, as well as innovative tech products in the T-GOLD section.

While May’s VicenzaOro Spring and September’s VicenzaOro Fall offer better weather, the Winter show is said to attract the most American buyers.

The bulk of the show’s exhibitors are, indeed, Italian, but American and Asian vendors with eyes on overseas buyers turn out in full force. Take Rosana Otani, international sales director for Chicago-based Carla Amorim, which is exhibiting for the second year. Otani looks forward to the Winter edition because that’s when she sees clients from Russia and the Middle East. “It’s important for buyers to stock up in January,” she says. “If they wait until Baselworld, they won’t receive orders until the summer.”

Among the new offerings Carla Amorim will bring to VicenzaOro are additions to the upscale Black Label line, which debuted in 2012 to celebrate the brand’s 20th anniversary. The national flag of the ­designer’s native Brazil lends the collection a vibrant color palette: emeralds for green, tanzanite for blue, diamonds for white, and sunny beryl for yellow. Several pieces pay tribute to locales such as Brasilia and Gramado, which Amorim has honored with tanzanite-tinted hydrangeas.