All That Glitters May Be Fake : Costume Jewelry Is Back in Style in a Big Way
The windows of Ciro Jewelers in Beverly Hills are filled with a glittering collection of necklaces, earrings and pins to rival any jewelry shop in the tony town, with one exception--they’re all fake.
For 45 years at its Wilshire Boulevard location, Ciro has catered to a crowd that thinks diamonds aren’t their only best friend. And during the past few years business has gotten better and better as costume jewelry has gained a new luster with the consumer.
“It just goes by leaps and bounds. Every year it increases,” said Betty Cravens, manager of Ciro, which is one more than 20 branches in the United States.
But as sales have boomed in fashion jewelry, as the industry calls such trinkets made of non-precious materials, imports have gained an increasing share of the U.S. market.
What the Toyota Corolla did to Detroit and the U.S. car industry in the early 1970s, the wildly popular strands of “twister beads” and other non-metal jewelry did to some extent in the early 1980s to Providence, R.I., the costume jewelry capital of America.
But things are looking up for domestic manufacturers. Bauble makers who drew a bead on foreign manufacturers report some success in improving their ability to compete, and the weakening of the U.S. dollar has slowed the increase in imports during the past several months.
“It tends to be a fairly emotional issue within the industry,” said Matthew A. Runci, executive director of the Manufacturing Jewelers & Silversmiths of America, a trade group based in Providence.
Costume jewelry has enjoyed an explosion in popularity since the late 1970s, and for the past several years sales growth has exceeded the annual increase in disposable income, Runci said.
Some estimates place annual fashion jewelry sales as high as $6 billion or $7 billion at retail, while fine jewelry is estimated to produce annual retail sales of $12 billion to $14 billion.
At Ceres Corp., one of the world’s largest producers of cubic zirconia, the mineral that has become a common and low-cost diamond substitute, sales have leaped in recent years, President Joseph F. Wenckus said.
The North Billerica, Mass., company shipped 72 tons of cubic zirconia to cutters last year compared to about 32 tons in 1985, he said. Producers in Taiwan, Ceres’ biggest competitor, shipped an estimated 90 to 100 tons, he said.
“It’s all going on at a fever pitch,” Wenckus said.
Costume jewelry tends to be purchased by the person who will wear it, while fine jewelry tends to be bought as a gift, Runci said.
The jump in sales can be traced in part to the increasing number of working women, said John E. Benison, executive vice president of marketing and sales for Napier, a Meriden, Conn.-based firm that is one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of fashion jewelry.
Fashion Changes
“As the women have moved more and more into the work force and the professional fields, they have looked for investment clothing,” he said. “This has created the need to add accessories to create a new look, because with investment clothing they can’t afford a new wardrobe each season. . . . It’s a heck of a lot easier to buy a new necklace and earrings than it is to go out and buy a new Anne Klein blazer.”
Changes in fashion, spurred by the likes of Madonna and Cyndi Lauper, also played a role.
“We see women turning from costume jewelry as strictly an imitation of the real thing to looking at costume jewelry for its own sake,” said Virginia Haigh, vice president of marketing for Trifari, a big producer of moderately priced fashion jewelry.
“People went through a period where simple was good,” said James R. Winokur, president of B. B. Greenberg, a large costume jewelry maker in Providence. “Now people are going through a period where beautiful and ornamental are good.
“It’s like architecture,” he said. “Twenty-five years ago, one would never have believed that Victorian residential architecture would be as popular as it is today.”
Robberies a Factor
The quality and variety of costume jewelry have improved as well, industry watchers say.
“You find people who were architects or painters or something, and now they’ve gone into the field of jewelry,” said Betty Floura, accessory buyer for the Laise Adzer clothing chain and for Glitz, the company’s costume jewelry store in Century City.
And in the rarefied atmosphere of Beverly Hills, there are other concerns.
“In Beverly Hills and the Westside of Los Angeles, there are so many robberies,” said Cravens of Ciro. “Many people have lost their jewelry in robberies. They often replace their real jewelry with good copies.”
For others, high insurance costs have persuaded them to leave the diamonds in the safe deposit box. Instead, they wear high-quality fakes, she said. At Ciro, jewelry can range from a $20 pin to a $2,800 necklace of cubic zirconia set in gold.
For some, she said, boredom is the key.
“I have many customers who say, ‘Oh, my diamond earrings, I can’t wear again. I’m so tired of them.’ ” Cravens said. “Then they pull them out of their purse and, my goodness, you could buy a house with them.” They buy fashion jewelry for the variety, she said.
But while sales of costume jewelry have risen, imports have increased even faster.
Imports constituted 27% of the U.S. market in 1986, according to a study by Business Trend Analysts, a marketing research firm in Commack, N.Y. Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan account for three-fourths of imported fashion jewelry, the study found.
The idea of jewels from the Orient conjures up visions of pearls and gold crammed into chests carried on tall ships. The modern reality is somewhat less romantic.
Most modern imports fall into the non-metal category, made primarily of wood, plastic, leather, bone, shell and ivory, a 1986 study by the International Trade Commission found.
That category of jewelry zoomed in popularity in the early 1980s, but most domestic manufacturers were producing metal jewelry, the study said. As a result, imports made significant inroads into the U.S. market, it said.
For example, the United States absorbed 29% of total world fashion jewelry imports in 1981. That grew to 52% in 1985, the study said. In 1985, imports represented 84% of the non-metal jewelry sold in the United States and 19% of the non-precious metal jewelry.
Imports have also enjoyed a tremendous cost advantage because of lower labor rates and other manufacturing expenses, Runci said. Also, the strength of the U.S. dollar, compared to many foreign currencies in the early 1980s, made imports cheap for U.S. consumers.
In Thailand, the average hourly wage for a jewelry worker is 56 cents, compared to $7 or $8 an hour in the United States, he said. “While Thailand may represent an extreme in low cost . . . when you look at Taiwan or Hong Kong, unquestionably they have an advantage in labor costs and other manufacturing costs,” such as those created by environmental and labor regulations.
“For some manufacturers, imports have represented and continue to represent a threat,” Runci said.
The ITC study found that employment among costume jewelry manufacturers fell 6.7% to 22,200 workers in 1985, compared to 1981. However, profitability of the U.S. producers that responded to the survey remained relatively stable from 1981 to 1985.
Fashion Changes
To compete against low-priced imports, U.S. manufacturers have been emphasizing a variety of marketing factors. Domestic producers have an advantage over foreign manufacturers in their ability to provide support services, sales promotions, training and other incentives, Runci said.
Some U.S. manufacturers have moved production to foreign shores or are importing more parts for assembly in the United States, he said. Frequently changing styles and focusing on quality have benefited many domestic manufacturers, he said.
“More recently, the role of imports has probably leveled off because the fashion look has changed, and much more it’s what we call the design-intensive look,” said Haigh of Trifari. Costume jewelry using metal has gained over the brightly colored look, she said.
B. B. Greenberg, which has long imported jewelry parts, found itself importing entire pieces, Winokur said. “But now we find the American manufacturer is much more competitive,” he said, adding that the company manufactures the bulk of its products in the United States.
Two years ago, the Manufacturing Jewelers & Silversmiths of America sponsored a study by an engineering firm on the state of the industry.
“What we found out, not to our surprise, was the industry was performing well below its capability,” Runci said. But by implementing ways to improve productivity and modernize plants--some as simple as changing a plant’s layout--more than 300 firms in the fine and costume jewelry industries have saved more than $7 million without substantial capital investment, he said.
Weak Dollar Helps
Some companies have tried exporting as a way to boost sales, but in an industry made up primarily of small businesses, “it’s an arduous process,” Runci said.
Monet, another large costume jewelry company, has scored well with its export program, said President Brian Tart.
“We have had quantum leaps in volume over there” in Asia, he said. “The best defense is a good offense.” Recently, the domestic industry has been beneficiary of changing exchange rates.
“The American jewelry manufacturer has been combating imports (primarily) thanks to the decline of the American dollar,” Winokur said.
The industry was recently encouraged, Runci said, when the U.S. government “graduated” some foreign competitors from a preference program that allowed certain developing countries to import jewelry into the United States without paying duties, which range from 6.5% to 12%.
“We fought hard for that last year,” Runci said. “We don’t view it as a protectionist measure but as a way to level the playing field.
“Some companies have gone out of business” because of imports, Runci said. “On the other side, there are those who say it is time for the industry to adapt and to compete.”
