Tiffany challenged by logos as jewellery goes brand-mad

In Christmases past, gentlemen headed to their trusty local jewellery shop to buy generic gems for their significant others – strands of pearls, diamond-stud earrings.

This year more are visiting luxury department stores and boutiques and dropping premiums on branded fine jewelry from fashion houses including Ralph Lauren, Gianni Versace and Salvatore Ferragamo Italia. Celebrity jewelers such as glam-rock-inspired Stephen Webster are feeling the love, too.

Well-heeled consumers are developing a taste for precious adornment that broadcasts its brand provenance either by incorporating such well-known logos as Versace’s Medusa head or using distinctive designs like David Yurman’s chunky carved cable silverwork.

“Jewellery was the last luxury product sold largely anonymously,” designer Webster said in an e-mail. “Brands caught wind of that and, of course, brands cannot be anonymous.”

Branded jewelry sales will double to 30 per cent of the US$59.2 billion US fine jewelry market in the next decade, said Ken Gassman, president of the Jewelry Industry Research Institute. The new entrants are competing with Tiffany & Co. -- which last month cut its annual profit forecast for the third time this year -- and may further decimate the thinning ranks of specialty jewellers. The U.S. had 22,330 specialty jewellers in 2011, down 28 per cent from their 1987 peak, Gassman said.

“The fact that many top-tier luxury brands are targeting jewellery creates intense competition, and squeezes Tiffany,” said Milton Pedraza, chief executive officer of the Luxury Institute, a New York-based luxury consulting firm.