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TrendsOct 10, 2018
Meet the New Jewelry Platform That Shook Up London Fashion Week
The Jewellery Cut is a consumer-facing editorial website that held a two-day showcase during the recent fashion week, highlighting independent jewelry designers.
The Jewellery Cut founders, Andrew Martyniuk (left) and Rachael Taylor (right), pictured at The Jewellery Cut Showroom during London Fashion Week
London—Two British jewelry trade publication alumni have developed a company that aims to promote design to a modern consumer.
The Jewellery Cut is a venture from journalist Rachael Taylor and sales and marketing professional Andrew Martyniuk, who worked together at Professional Jeweler and Watch Pro—Taylor as editor and Martyniuk as head of sales and marketing.
Their new company, launched this year, is comprised of a jewelry editorial website with a heavy focus on curating events.
The website, which went live the last week of September, will “cover a wide range of jewelry, from interesting, well-done costume jewelry to luxury fine jewelry, with a view of writing about it in an in-depth way but aimed at consumers,” Taylor explained.
“I want the concept to be intelligent and engaging enough for people in the industry to read it and enjoy it, but also for it to be entertaining for consumers too. Especially consumers who have sort of liked jewelry but felt like it’s quite exclusive and not for them.”
Just as is needed in retail, in addition to the online component, The Jewellery Cut also should also create in-person experiences to be effective, Taylor said.
Through the website has only just launched, The Jewellery Cut began holding events with its first designer talk in June, attended by collectors and members of the trade.
But it really made a splash during London Fashion Week, when it hosted “The Jewellery Cut Showroom,” a two-day experience in which 16 designers presented their latest collections alongside best-sellers. The event featured a special VIP cocktail reception and jewelry master classes limited to 20 attendees. One brand, Aurelian, even launched at the showroom.
True to The Jewellery Cut’s vision, the event attracted trade professionals and consumers who attended by signing up for free tickets. Some exhibiting designers sold their best-selling pieces or even design samples, while a few others offered special incentives to shoppers. The shopping component was so successful that one designer, Akansha Sethi, sold out of one collection of carved gemstone rings, which retail in the vicinity of $600.
As for the trade guests, Taylor and Martyniuk even succeeded in diversifying that group of attendees, recruiting everyone from journalists and retail buyers to representatives of wholesale-focused companies and even higher-end companies like Cartier.
At its core, The Jewellery Cut is about bridging gaps, between consumers and their lack of knowledge about or intimidation of
the jewelry world, an industry that sticks to its designated cliques and where designers can feel like they’re unable to “get their message out” to consumers in a crowded marketplace, Taylor said.
“Instagram and all of these social media platforms have really liberated designers, allowing them to control their messages, but it’s hard for them to break out of the little tribes they’ve set up in terms of getting coverage in publications,” she added.
“I think the glossy (consumer) magazines do a great job of covering high-end luxury brands, Bond Street brands, the Diors and Chanels, because those brands have the budget to advertise. Then you have the trade magazines in the U.K. and they do a really good job of covering the business side of it and the larger wholesale brands, but there’s this huge gap in the middle where there’s loads of really interesting stuff going on that doesn’t get a lot of coverage, your smaller brands who sell directly (to consumers) or your designer/makers who make pieces themselves as individual goldsmiths. There’s such a rich source of design in that area.”
The Jewellery Cut will continue to host its showroom during the biannual London Fashion Week and has more events in the works around the U.K. and possibly further afield in Europe.
Coming up next is a three-week holiday pop-up shop beginning Nov. 29 in collaboration with the Goldsmiths Company, organizer of the Goldsmiths fair, to be held at London’s Mare Street Market.
Aiming to reach a younger demographic than the aforementioned show, the pop-up will feature jewelry under $1,000.
“From a consumer point of view we’d like to break down some of the barriers (to buying jewelry),” Taylor concluded. “So on one hand it’s exposing what’s great about the industry that’s maybe a little hidden and on the other hand sort of holding consumers’ hands on that journey.
“There’s still a price sensitivity with a lot of people with jewelry that isn’t necessary because people will drop $1,000 on an iPhone and not even think about it and probably do that again in a couple of years, but when it comes to spending a couple of hundred pounds on a piece of jewelry, people are still nervous about that.”
“Instagram and all of these social media platforms have really liberated designers, allowing them to control their messages, but it’s hard for them to break out of the little tribes they’ve set up in terms of getting coverage in publications,” she added.
“I think the glossy (consumer) magazines do a great job of covering high-end luxury brands, Bond Street brands, the Diors and Chanels, because those brands have the budget to advertise. Then you have the trade magazines in the U.K. and they do a really good job of covering the business side of it and the larger wholesale brands, but there’s this huge gap in the middle where there’s loads of really interesting stuff going on that doesn’t get a lot of coverage, your smaller brands who sell directly (to consumers) or your designer/makers who make pieces themselves as individual goldsmiths. There’s such a rich source of design in that area.”
The Jewellery Cut will continue to host its showroom during the biannual London Fashion Week and has more events in the works around the U.K. and possibly further afield in Europe.
Coming up next is a three-week holiday pop-up shop beginning Nov. 29 in collaboration with the Goldsmiths Company, organizer of the Goldsmiths fair, to be held at London’s Mare Street Market.
Aiming to reach a younger demographic than the aforementioned show, the pop-up will feature jewelry under $1,000.
“From a consumer point of view we’d like to break down some of the barriers (to buying jewelry),” Taylor concluded. “So on one hand it’s exposing what’s great about the industry that’s maybe a little hidden and on the other hand sort of holding consumers’ hands on that journey.
“There’s still a price sensitivity with a lot of people with jewelry that isn’t necessary because people will drop $1,000 on an iPhone and not even think about it and probably do that again in a couple of years, but when it comes to spending a couple of hundred pounds on a piece of jewelry, people are still nervous about that.”
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