How to Be a Trendsetter For New Jewellery Products
Most jewellery manufacturers follow popular trends and try to incorporate them into their production lines. But, why just follow trends? – Why not be a trendsetter instead?
All it really takes to be a trendsetter is to encourage the flow of your creative juices and especially of your designers. And then of course there’s the matter of follow-through. To begin with – Why not undertake an exercise allowing your in-house or consulting designers absolute freedom for their ideas and see what they come up with!
Meanwhile, here are a few ideas to get the ball rolling for you:
New, not often explored product categories: Almost all women adore jewellery. But, the ladies love other accessories too. They revel in wearing delicate hairpieces, belts, beautiful and ornate belt buckles and what have you! Why not infuse fine jewellery into these product categories? It’s not that bejewelled accessories have never been done. But, they’ve certainly not been done enough.
Starting a line of gold, silver, platinum, or even diamond studded belts could be a great opportunity to branch out into different product line extensions. Diamond and coloured-stone studded hairpieces, intricately designed metallic clutch purses could be other options. These suggestions are only meant to get you to start thinking – The possibilities are truly limitless.
Zany new concepts: We have already seen zany trends like a single statement earring on runways in Europe. Think up other similar new concepts. As an example – imagine starting a raging trend of wearing two completely complementary but completely different earrings! They could be of an identical design with one studded with diamonds and the other with a coloured stone; Or they could be two different animals or flowers made from the same combination of stones; Or they could be a bouquet and a vase, a bow and an arrow, a halo and the devil’s horns, a caterpillar in all black stones and a beautiful coloured butterfly, a rainbow and a pot of gold; Or they could be two different geometric designs. Similar ideas could start trends that might last forever!
On the lines of new concepts, you could manufacture a new line of statement brooches that can be worn to pin up a sari under the shoulder as easily as it can be used to beautifully accessorise a Western-styled dress or blouse. A brooch could even spread across to cover the chest like a low necklace without a chain but pinned up instead.
Zany new concepts could include playing with new, never-used before materials – metals, non-metals – whatever might make for interesting yet practical material for beautiful crafted jewellery.
Different ways of sporting jewellery: This could be four eternity or solitaire rings in four different types of stones worn on all four fingers of a hand, or any other concept. All you have to do is start production in a small quantity, present it to a few of your customers, announce it on social media, and see where it goes.
Theme-based concepts: Whether it’s the Olympics, the World Cup, the Grammy Awards, or anything else. Look out for occasions for manufacturing theme-based lines. These themes could be amalgamated with the unusual concepts above – Wouldn’t that make for some excitingly enticing products!
Coloured Lab-Grown Diamonds Trend?: While so many people are shouting themselves hoarse about the threat of lab-grown diamonds, hardly anyone is looking at the category as the business opportunity that it truly is. Chief among the category is coloured stones. Coloured natural diamonds are relatively rare. Laboratory-grown coloured diamonds are of very high quality. This presents a wonderful opportunity to use them in jewellery. This should needless to say be along with full disclosure.
Whether it’s the use of new categories, concepts, materials, ways of adournment, or just plain innovative designing, it is the trendsetters that always take the lead in the world of fashion and jewellery. So, let’s stop constantly following the herd, and become shepherds instead!