ModernJeweler.com |

Jewelry this season doesn’t lie flat: it pops off the finger, twists off the chain, and puffs up into the third dimension.

The roses and vines of several seasons now have evolved into three-dimensional blossoms and leaves that curve off the body in lifelike fashion. Spheres and cages, usually hollow with cut-work details, appear as charms, stations, and pendants. Pearls remain popular, even with many designers who haven’t featured them in the past. Designers looking for big bold looks at affordable prices are sculpting with air in large-scale electroform pieces. Other bigger scale designs have openwork and cutouts. There’s more than a little of the eighties in all this, with yellow gold and two-tone styles boldly going beyond.

The strong trends we’ve tracked in the past few issues were in Vegas in force: rose cut diamonds and a surprising variety of rose cut sapphires, rubies, amethysts, citrines, iolites, and other gemstones were everywhere. Blackened metals including silver, gold, steel, and other materials added drama to many designs. Gold jewelry continues to feature textured finishes, from the hand-hammered looks so important last year to new hand-engraved and distressed surfaces. Warm tones, especially browns, are still very important and the use of rose gold is growing in diamond and colored gemstone jewelry. Hoops dominate the earring category. Bangles and cuffs are still important. Black and white continues on. Necklaces are still long, longer, longest, and pendants, especially circular medallions with cut-out designs, are the most important item.

And many smaller trends expanded: agates are featured in many new designs, monograms add a personal touch to many collections, enamel adds color, and reliefs like coins, cameos, and intaglios continue to be very directional.

But many new collections were aimed at a new market rather than purely driven by design. Designers added more affordable lines in silver, brands added upmarket collections, companies launched new men’s collections, and jewelry manufacturers launched new diamond watch lines.

New materials, new techniques, and an aggressive new mantra to find the margins led to a show that was a strange blend of innovation and conservatism. Innovation was often in materials, techniques or marketing, conservatism in design.

But some directional collections showed real design innovation. Sevan Bicakci continues to push the boundaries of scale and complexity with rings that pile on blossoms, insects, and other flora and fauna. Galatea follows last year’s pearl actually grown on a gem sphere (“Core Values,” Modern Jeweler, February 2006, page 42) with a new Da Vinci gem cut that turns color through clever optics. And Italian companies like Raffaella Mannelli and De Luca showed carved designs in ebony and coral which were truly sculptural.