DTC to sponsor international design competition

Jewelry Discussion
1

Dear jewelers, I am forwarding this design competition opportunity to
all the members.

Unfortunately the deadline is so close, there is no way to promote
this in any magazines I write for. Apparently “planning ahead” is
not in the vocabulary of the Diamond Trading Corporation. (The DTC
is another name for De Beers.)

Ettagale Blauer

DTC TO SPONSOR INTERNATIONAL DESIGN COMPETITION

Nature-Inspired Jewelry Designs to go on traveling exhibition in
late 2004

January 2004 – The Diamond Trading Company is holding a design
competition to create a prestigious international collection of
diamond jewelry celebrating the natural beauty of diamonds. Selected
designs will be part of an international collection to be exhibited
by the Diamond Trading Company, beginning in Fall 2004 in a major
European city to announced this spring. Titled, “Diamonds: Nature’s
Miracle,” the exhibition will subsequently travel to other
international markets through June 2005.

Entrants must be jewelers (retail, wholesale or manufacturing),
jewelry designers and persons actively involved in the design and
manufacture of precious jewelry. Designs must include a minimum of
25 carats of diamonds and must derive 60 percent of its value from
diamonds. Entrants must submit their design sketches to the Diamond
Trading Company by February 16, 2004.

Designs submitted must be individual jewelry designs for men or
women. Submissions must be original and must not be entered into any
other design competition, offered for sale or publicly displayed.

Up to 10 designs from each participating country will be
short-listed to go forward to the final judging. A Board of Judges
will select up to three designs from the short-listed designs from
each market to be part of the international collection. Winners will
be notified by February 25, 2004 and must create their final pieces
by May 31, 2004.

For inquiries or to request an entry form, contact Amanda Patterson
at the Diamond Information Center at 212.210.7571 or
amanda.patterson@jwt.com.

Carson Glover
Senior Account Executive
Diamond Information Center
466 Lexington Ave., 5th Floor
New York, NY 10017
phone- 212.210.7859
fax- 212.210.8778

2

I received the brochure. 25 carats, hmmm…Anybody want to sponsor
me? May need to go public on this one. At first, I couldn’t believe
their audacity for suggesting such a ludicrous requirement, but,
later, it all made sense. It ain’t about you, as a designer…it’s
about them. God help you if you are selected to make your piece.
Perhaps 25 carats of the I3 Q colour that they flog on the
mass-production market is exactly what they would like to see. We can
buy that at $250.00 per carat or lower. Ugliest frozen-spit secured
in rhodium plated 10 karat wins. Who else besides me is into this?

Ooohhhh…my gag reflex…

http://www.davidkeelingjewellery.com

End of forwarded message

3

Hellooooo Orchid, I did not receive the mentioned brochure but it
sounds like one of the DeBeers promotions ? any hoo We produce
jewelery that often contains 25 or more caret and now that I think of
it , the high end mfg. market is probably the minority of jewelers
that are focused on for design competitions. Soooo I don’t find
anything “ludicrous” about the requirment. This is the area of the
trade I have always aspired to and we at Molina are always challenged
to create “beautiful " pieces or suites with large majors and large
caret weight and I can tell you it’s not so easy my friends. I would
also like to add that our goods although large and many look nothing
like” frozen spit " It might be wise to keep in mind that if not for
the promotion efforts of our “many” different Diamond and Color
suppliers alot of us would be unemployed and the trade we all love
would be greatly undervalued. In my opinion some of the most
beautiful jewelery ever created was over 25 caret , thank you very
much. Peace Karl

4 
it's about them. God help you if you are selected to make your
piece. Perhaps 25 carats of the I3 Q colour that they flog on the
mass-production market is exactly what they would like to see.

I think that, were I moved to try an entry, I’d be using rough
crystals. I’ve seen these, even on ebay, for as little as 25 a carat,
often in surprisingly large sizes, and though they aren’t gem grade,
as natural crystals, they have considerable charm and interest.
Couple that with, just for contrast, some of those nice irradiated
black diamonds for 75 a carat, and heck. You could afford to make
your design up in decent quality metal and still not go broke…

Or, I’d bet you could, perhaps with a plea here on orchid, come up
with 25 carats worth of broken melee, put in a little hand blown
bottle nicely set in 18K gold.

You DO have options. Nothing in that proposal said you had to use
VVS1, G color, half caraters and above to make the design.

Note too, that it’s not surprising they have a restriction like
that. They’re only taking what, ten people per country? Not many
entries needed, and there certainly ARE some firms out there, often
those most able to do high production levels of commercial goods,
and therefore quite important to DeBeers overall market, for whom 25
carats in a piece are not unreasonable. High end, yes, but certainly
not unreasonable for, say, the likes of Tiffanys or Winstons or
Zales, should they, as companies, wish the exposure of such an
exhibit. it may put many of US out of the picture as individual
craftspeople, but then most of us are about beautiful jewelry and the
art of jewelry, more than we’re about the high volume multi store or
international commercial selling of lots of DeBeers merchandise,
which of course is what THEIR aim certainly is.

Peter