Ever needed an excuse for accessories links of london I thought not, but just in case you were having a twinge of guilt about personal adornment, there’s a rash of jewellery designers who can help.
Alongside their regular collections, Wright & Teague, Links of London and Kira Bella are all selling pieces in aid of charities. Edgy Mayfair jewellers Wright & Teague (020-7629 2777; Links of London Charms) is selling a silver necklace and bangle to benefit WaterAid, a charity that works with some of the world’s poorest people, helping to provide clean, safe water, sanitation and hygiene education. Not only is Wright & Teague doing good works, but it has priced the two pieces at 25 per cent less than usual to encourage you to buy. For every necklace, £ 95, and bangle, £ 65, sold it will donate £ 15 to WaterAid -the exact sum that provides one person access to the basics of clean water.
The Kira Bella jewellery brand (available at Links of London Necklaces) is also coming to the aid of some of the world’s poorest people through sales of its six-piece Rio Beach Vibes collection, handmade by girls from favelas in Rio de Janeiro. A percentage of the profits isreinvested to help the vulnerable women and their children re-build their lives. Kira Bella is particularly ethically minded when it comes to jewellery, so she takes great pains to establish fair and lasting relationships with all her suppliers worldwide. And it’s not too painful to help out, prices range from £ 20 for a pendant to £ 38 for a necklace.
Meanwhile, Links of London (0845 1202922; ) is aiming to raise £ 100,000 for the NSPCC’s There4me project (Links of London Bracelets) -a new online counselling service for 12 to 16 year olds. Links has a lanyard bracelet in silver, £ 85, or a limited edition of 250 in yellow gold, £ 1,500. Links’ Founder and Creative Director Annoushka Ducas’s inspiration for the designs were friendship bracelets made by her children. “These bracelets are emblems of the love, support and understanding we share. Ihave tried to reflect these emotions in the designs.”
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While Deir El-Medina has been exhaustively dug, no detailed study has ever been carried out of similar remains in the Valley Links of London Jewellery. So far as their daily work lives are concerned, the craftsmen who cut and decorated tombs that today wow millions of visitors have to all intents and purposes disappeared from history (there is an interesting parallel here with modern Egyptian laborers, whose crucial contribution to the uncovering of their country’s past has also been shamefully overlooked).
This was the gap we were hoping to fill, specifically by excavating a series of ancient workers’ huts that once sat on the Valley floor and which are now Links of London Necklaces, 3000 years later, buried beneath five meters of compacted sand and rubble.
The existence of these huts has long been known (Howard Carter dismantled one such group to get to Tutankhamun) Links of London Bracelets. We were the first expedition to systematically dig and record them, however, in the process turning up numerous artifacts from which we were able to build a picture, albeit an incomplete one, of what life was like in the Valley three millennia ago.
Now I freely admit that, on the face of it, the fact that a group of navvies once snacked on fish and bread, worshipped at small, makeshift shrines, scribbled notes to themselves, practiced their drawing and amused each other with scurrilous graffiti of stubble-chinned pharaohs and men with giant penises — none of this is especially glamorous or earth shattering Links of London Bangles, particularly when measured against the amazing objects found a few meters away in Tut’s tomb.
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What would you do if the entire contents of two display cases suddenly disappeared? That’s the question 265 former U.S. accounts of Tiffany & Co. are asking themselves links of london. When Tiffany halted sales from its trade division eight months ago to focus on store development, it left a major void in the inventories of those 265 retailers, some of whom relied on Tiffany products for as much as 20% of their business. And jewelers miss the venerable blue box–the classic emblem of the Tiffany purchase.
But U.S. jewelers–and those in Europe Links of London Rings, too, as of July–are learning to cope. “I’d prefer to sell the line, but there’s nothing we can do about it,” says Tim Greve, president of Carl Greve Jewelers in Portland, Ore., which sold Tiffany products for 14 years. “But the upside is that now I’m finding new business in different areas Links of London Bracelets,” he adds.
Life after Tiffany. Jewelers suffering from Tiffany withdrawal have had two options: brand their own merchandise or pick up comparable lines. Most jewelers have made a virtue of necessity and transformed the predicament into an opportunity to strengthen their store’s brand and identity or to offer unique–sometimes exclusive–products to their customers.
When confronted with Tiffany enthusiasts seeking “blue-boxed” items, jewelers explain the products’ absence and suggest comparable pieces. Marc Green, vice chairman of Lux Links of London Earrings, Bond & Green in West Hartfield, Conn., is delighted with the opportunity to step up company branding efforts, despite a lifelong relationship with Tiffany. “Now we’re constantly marketing ourselves,” he says. Since Lux, Bond & Green products replaced Tiffany stock at Green’s store in January, sales have remained steady, he reports.
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The point concerning uniform production standards is crucial to the wider acceptance of coloured gemstones as an alternative investment. Gemstones have historically been enhanced in order to improve their lustre and appearance links of london. The methods employed range from the use of dyes and pigments to heat treatments and irradiation. While they invariably lead to improvements from an aesthetic viewpoint, the techniques have become so refined that even seasoned experts can often find it difficult to spot them. These ‘improvements’ are problematic for investors as it is the pure, untreated stones that command premium prices. Indeed, in order to confirm it had not been subjected to enhancements Links of London Charms, the Graff Ruby had to be certified by the laboratory of the Swiss Foundation for the Research of Gemstones. And while legislation is in place to compel sellers to disclose the provenance of their gemstones, the widespread abuse of these techniques has undermined investor confidence.
Fair trade implications
The enhancement problems actually overlap with the more commonly known fair trade issues. This phenomenon is projected to play an increasing role in gemstone markets. High-profile media campaigns and Oscar-nominated films such as Blood Diamond have brought home to the wider consumer market the deplorable conditions under which many stones are recovered Links of London Necklaces.
A number of integrated producers and distributors are now in operation and, if the market for fair trade gemstones develops at the same rate as other commodities such as coffee, then the industry as a whole will have to take notice Links of London Bracelets. Sales of Fair Trade products grew by 38 per cent in the US over the course of 2007.
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Tiffany’s board of directors has extended the expiration of its stock repurchase program. It has also authorized the repurchase of up to $500 million of common stock.
The company plans to repurchase up to $637 million of its common stock by 2011 and reportedly has some 127 million shares still outstanding.
Chairman and CEO Michael J. Kowalski noted: “We have repurchased a considerable amount of stock in recent years, but have been substantially more active in fiscal year 2007. In fact, we have spent approximately $400 million to repurchase 8.9 million shares in the current quarter since November 1.”
Tiffany also announced plans to open two new boutiques in Tokyo in the beginning of March. One store is to be opened at the Matsuzakaya Ginza department store in Tokyo’s center of high fashion and luxury retail. The other boutique is to be opened in Daimaru department store, a mainstay of luxury shopping in the city’s downtown business district.
President of Tiffany & Co. Japan Inc Michael Christ commented: “We are pleased to join Tokyo’s Matsuzakaya Ginza store and the Daimaru store in Fukuoka. Both locations offer greater convenience to our established clientele, and give us the opportunity to expand our presence with the superb collections and outstanding service that make shopping at Tiffany a unique experience.”
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If Tiffany does join the alarmingly large crowd of American firms caught out by financial engineering, it will be a pity, since in other respects it is proving a model of modern luxury-goods management. In this, it has been helped by economic recovery–particularly in America, where the firm still makes 63% of its sales–and also (ironically, given its options mistake) by a weak dollar that both makes its trinkets cheaper for foreigners and boosts the dollar value of overseas profits. But Tiffany has also been shaking up its own organization.
To meet its target of long-term sales growth of 12-15% a year, Tiffany has also been looking to new markets. It is opening a store in Sydney this autumn; it plans to open another in Mexico City, as well as adding two new stores a year to its 16 American outlets. This policy bears comparison with that of other international luxury-goods firms which have quietly consolidated their position through the recent recession, such as France’s LVMH. But William Chaney, Tiffany’s chairman, dislikes it being taxed as a luxury-goods firm; he prefers to call it “a design-led business offering quality products at competitive prices.” In this case, tiffany earrings and cufflinks are provided for more people.
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