Jewelry Fashion Trends

Tiffany’s stores are undergoing major makeover to make shopping for jewelry a more accessible and comfortable experience. The first store featuring new format was opened in Glendale, California and it features jewelry at entry- and mid-level prices, and customers are encouraged to try pieces on. Jewelry is openly exhibited on mountings, under glass that is not fully closed off and in drawers that customers can open. Price points range from $80 to $42,000, but average between $200 and $5,000. Also, store employees have been trained as jewelry stylists and are encouraged to inform customers to take the jewelry into their own hands and try it on. Tiffany Company plans to open 70 more new stores featuring this new retail format, starting in 2009. Tiffany's most highly priced pieces, including engagement rings and statement jewelry, are not available in the new format.

Macy’s – one of the best known department stores celebrated its 150th birthday yesterday. To honor this anniversary Macy’s is renaming 34th Street in New York City—the address of its Herald Square flagship—to R.H. Macy Way - the brand's founder. The ceremonial unveiling of the street sign took place the morning of Oct. 28. The temporary sign will be on view until Nov. 15.

The birthday celebration included fashion industry gala at Gotham Hall in New York City, with guests like Kenneth Cole, Sean "Diddy" Combs, Todd English, Tyler Florence, Tommy Hilfiger, Clinton Kelly, Eva Mendes, Jessica Simpson, Martha Stewart and Ming Tsai. And there was of course birthday cake designed by Duff from Ace of Cakes, followed by a fireworks finale off the roof of the retailer's famous New York City landmark store.

The retail giant started as a fancy dry-goods store on 14th Street and Sixth Avenue in New York City 150 years ago. Today Macy’s has more than 800 stores across USA and is still growing.

Happy Birthday!

Many tabloid magazines face difficult time as people tend to spend less money at newsstand nowadays. For the newsstand-dependent celebrity weeklies, compelling covers are absolutely crucial, making editors' choices of cover stars more important than ever.

Forbes has  prepared a ranking of most valuable / top selling celebrity faces on magazine covers. They analyzed the newsstand sales for the six biggest celebrity weeklies-- People, Star, US Weekly, In Touch Weekly, Life & Style and OK!--over a year-long period ending June 30, eliminating non-celebrity and "collage" covers as well as one-off cover subjects and special issues with exceptionally large rate bases.

Angelina Jolie earned the top spot defeating Jennifer Aniston who landed on a second place (she was No. 1 last year). Rounding out the top three is Heath Ledger, whose life was cut tragically short earlier this year. Traditionally, male covers sell far fewer copies than female ones with the typically female reader base (both Brad Pitt and Matthew McConaughey failed to make the top 10, though another tragic cover subject, Owen Wilson, did). But the idea of a talent like Ledger dying so young left readers grasping for clues--and buying magazines in search of them.

For full ranking of top selling celebrity faces click here.

Nicole Richie known mostly for her reality shows and celebrity lifestyle decided to launch a jewelry line. The new line is called House of Harlow 1960 and is definitely inspired by 60s and 70s.

Richie partnered with jewelry designer Pascal Mouawad who helped bring her vision to life, and the collection takes inspiration from Richie’s sought-after style. Using leather, silk strings, chains, rivets, gold plated metals and a jewel-toned color palette, the jewelry explores “every theme true to the bohemian look; from gypsy to tribal, flower child to edgy street wear,” according to a press release.

You can see Nicole’s jewelry in October’s InStyle Magazine, where she also describes philosophy behind the project “I don’t like anything tiny. I guess it would make more sense for me, but I’m drawn to large, eclectic pieces.” The collection is only available at the famous LA boutique, Kitson, and ranges from $30 - $250.

VS Wish is a new fragrance from Victoria’s Secret promoted by Brazilian supermodel Adriana Lima in ultra expensive $ 500 000 000 bra. The jewelry bra was made by jeweler Martin Katz and contains 3,575 black diamonds, 117 certified one carat round diamonds, 34 rubies and two black diamond drops that top out at 100 carats. The bra is Victoria’s Secret 2008 Fantasy Bra and will be presented during upcoming VS Fashion Show.

This is great news for amber lovers. Museum of Amber in Gdansk, added a virtual tour to their website. The presentation introduces amber collections of the museum and gives great information about amber in general.

Visitors begin their tour in the courtyard of Museum and can choose between the route which will familiarize them with history of the Foregate (where the Museum of Amber is currently situated), and the one providing a history of amber and amber craft. While visiting Prison Tower a virtual tourist actively takes part in the story about the events which took place millions years ago.

Visitors of the first floor can see the “Amber in Nature” exposition and an educational presentation called “A History of Amber”, which informs about origins of amber, creation of inclusions or how an amber forest looked like. During “The Ancient History of Amber” tour you can familiarize yourself with the beginnings of amber usage and its history and role throughout ages. Whole tour also includes very informative and interesting sections: “Handicraft and Modern Art”, “Amber in Jewelry”, “Historical Exhibition”, “Courtroom”, “Prison Cells of the Torture House”.

Moreover, this publication contains 360 degrees panoramas, films and photographs.

Dr Raven Hanna is a Yale educated scientist who came up with an idea of jewelry collection inspired by chemical formulas. Her necklaces accurately depict chemical structures of many well-known molecules. For example the “Happiness” necklace represents chemical structure of Serotonin molecules which interact with receptors in the brain to induce feelings of happiness, satisfaction and relaxation. The necklaces are made of sterling silver. Other designs include structures of chocolate, caffeine, dopamine, endorphin and many more. Each jewelry piece is packaged in a recycled box and includes an informational tag about the chosen molecule.

Couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about conflict-free gemstones and importance of knowing where the stone you are about to buy comes from.

If you plan to buy diamond jewelry I suggest visiting Ruff & Cut Jewelry for easy and socially responsible diamond jewelry shopping. The newly-launched company combines conflict-free diamonds from Sierra Leone and Canada with recycled gold to create stylishly rustic rings, pendants, bracelets, and earrings. The jewelry collection is what they call ‘socially responsible luxury”.

The company also donates 10% of profits to non-profit organizations in Africa. The prices vary from couple of hundreds to over $ 100 000 a piece.