The Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) calls on designers to take part in the 13th edition of the HRD Awards international contest to reveal the best design in diamond jewelry. The competition is held once in two years.
This year, its theme will be “Once upon a time… my favorite fairytale.” Designers will be invited to delve into the world of legend and fantasy, producing jewelry pieces, featuring characters that conjure up fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, witches and more.
The competition is open to professional and non-professional designers from all over the world, and the winning collection will be exhibited during 2009 - 2010 in Belgium and abroad. An opening exhibition is to take place on June 18, 2009, while in July and August the collection will be exhibited at the Diamond Museum Province of Antwerp. After Belgium the collection will be exhibited at international jewelry fairs, as well as in museums and in jewelry galleries.
Contest entries must be original designs which have not previously been put on display or commercialized. The diamond aspect of the design is critical, the Diamond Centre says. Any jewelry item must contain at least 1 carat and maximum 25 carats of diamonds.
Applications for the contest (together with the drawings of applicants’ designs, photos or photos of models) must be submitted before October 31, 2008. Those applicants who will be selected as laureates by the jury will be required to create and send actual diamond jewelry pieces to the contest before March 31, 2009.

Eight talented new designers have been selected as the “Rising Stars” of JCK Las Vegas 2008. Their jewelry debut will take pace at the trade show from May 30 to June 3 at the Sands Expo & Convention Center in Las Vegas.
Among the Rising Stars 2008 there are our compatriots.
Gemra AG - The official international dealer of Muz Elit LLC (Moscow Jewelry Factory “Elit”) presents the Russian “haute couture” jewelry brand, Monte Auri, with Russian collection.
Nina Basharova - Born in Russia and raised in the Ukraine, Nina Basharova’s artistic journey began while being exposed to her parents’ artistic community. She was inspired by that creative environment and merged her love for culture with an affinity for jewelry steeped in history. It should be noted that Basharova’s name was not new to the U.S. jewelry mass media. In particular, one of the IDEXMagazine issues featured a dedicated article.

Internet diamond and jewelry retailer Blue Nile, in its annual report, said its revenue grew 26.9 percent to $319.3 million for the fiscal year, ended Dec. 31, 2007.
Other financial highlights include:
Net income increased 33.6 percent to $17.5 million.
Adjusted Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization increased 31.4 percent to $29.9 million.
Return on equity was 33.7 percent (22.2 percent in 2006).
Free cash flow for the year was $36.6 million.
The Seattle-based company said it used a portion of the cash to repurchase $20 million worth of its stock, bringing its total stock repurchases in the last three years to $95 million. The company said it ended 2007 with more than $122 million of cash and cash equivalents, and no debt. It intends to continue to use its free cash flow to repurchase stock in the coming years.
Blue Nile said international expansion will be the focus of its growth for the coming year. In 2007, the company launched two local currency Web sites serving the Canadian and United Kingdom markets, and opened an operations center in Dublin, Ireland, to service the U.K. and the greater part of the European market. International sales doubled in 2007 from the prior year to $17 million.
“Looking forward, sales outside the United States will surely be an increasingly important part of our business,” Mark Vadon, chairman of the board, and Diane Irvine, president, wrote in the opening letter of the company’s annual report.
The company executives warned that the softening of consumer spending has made Blue Nile cautious in their 2008 expectations. However, they added: “Our belief in the strength of our business model, however, is unwavering; and we believe we will emerge from any economic downturn with increased market share and a stronger financial position relative to our competitors. We are financially strong, with a lean cost structure and a capital-efficient business model.”
According to a later Blue Nile report, their results for Q1 of the current year exceed expectations.
Gross profit grew 5.1 percent to $13.9 million ($13.2 million for the similar quarter of 2007). Gross profit as a percentage of sales increased to 19.8 percent, compared to 19.5 percent for the first quarter of 2007.

Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA said its sales increased by 10 percent to 8.4 billion for the year (ended March 31), all this reached due to the sales of jewelry, top quality watches and Montblanc pens. “The strong growth in sales of luxury products seen during the first nine months continued during the final quarter of the financial year,” Richemont said.
The Zurich-based luxury goods holding company reported a very strong sales growth in China and Hong Kong. However, the overall growth rates turned out to be lower than one year ago (12 percent), which the company attributes to an economic slowdown in Japan.
According to Richemont, the fourth-quarter revenue rose 11 percent to $1.7 billion.
Quarterly sales from Europe and the Middle East climbed 17 percent to $703.7. Sales in North and South America were flat at $284.3 million for the quarter. The luxury goods maker said European sales had “good growth in established markets and double-digit sales growth in developing markets in the region, including the Middle East.”
Excluding currency swings, full-year sales rose 16 percent, the company said.
Richemont gets a fifth of revenue from the Americas region, where fourth-quarter sales “proved to be very resilient” excluding currency fluctuations.
Japanese sales fell 4.6 percent to $227.7 million for the quarter. In yen terms, revenue was “slightly below” the year-earlier period.
Richemont gets just over half of sales from jewelry and 25 percent from timepieces.
The dollar was on average 12 percent lower against the euro in Richemont’s fourth quarter.

House of Taylor Jewelry (HOTJ), a U.S. supplier of luxury jewelry, received a share delisting notice from NASDAQ. The company failed to release its financial results for the past year on the normal due date or by the end of the subsequent 15-day grace period, which ended April 15, thus falling out of compliance with NASDAQ’s requirements. The company also failed to pay its listing fees for trading its shares on the NASDAQ floor. As a result, HOTJ shares were officially delisted from the market on April 24.
As was reported earlier, on October 29, 2007 HOTJ received a NASDAQ notice indicating that its stock bid price was below the permitted margin of $1.00 per share for a minimum of ten consecutive business days. HOTJ was provided with 180 calendar days to regain compliance. 
HOTJ President and CEO Jack Abramov resigned from his posts at the beginning of April and was replaced by Lyle Rose. Additionally, Monty Abramov, the former president’s brother, resigned as secretary and vice president of the company.
HOTJ’s estimated (unaudited) financial results in 2007 look deplorably. The company’s net annual sales were a mere $200,000, a decrease of 99.3 percent against 2006. Gross sales for the year totaled $21.6 million, a 35.7 percent from the year before. The company expects a record net loss of $14.8 million in 2007.

LVMH Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy announced its business results for the first quarter of 2008. Its watch and jewelry sales totaled a 12 percent rise to 211 million euros. The group’s consolidated sales were up 5 percent reaching 4.002 billion euros including the data from the Asian, European and U.S. markets. Thanks to its creativity and expansion into new markets, the company hopes to continue its growth in 2008.
LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton also informed it was buying Hublot, a Swiss watch brand, with a distribution network of 300 stores worldwide. Hublot was established in 1980.
The company will join the already existing LVMH watch collections, which include TAG Heuer, Dior Montres, Louis Vuitton, Zenith, as well as watch collections produced by jewelry companies Chaumet, Fred and De Beers.
Hublot currently retails in France, Switzerland, Germany, Latin America, Japan, Hong Kong, Russia, Singapore, Spain, the Middle East and the U.S.A., as well as starting its business in China and India.
Its Big Bang collection is sold at prices ranging from $12,500 to $470,000.

Tiffany & Co. announced its plans to open new stores.
One of its boutiques is already functioning in the Shinsegae Gangnam Trade Center in Seoul (the Republic of Korea). Let us remind that its opening was preceded by the Tiffany jewelry exhibition in the South Korea metropolis.
A new boutique will be launched in Dublin next fall.
By the end of 2009, the company intends to open a store in CityCenter, a “vertical city” currently under development in Las Vegas.

Retail diamond sales at Amazon.com increased more than 100 percent in the first quarter of 2008. No exact data were released. According to the company spokesman, more and more customers make their purchases at the jewelry department of the Amazon.com online store.
A diamond chronograph was among the top selling items in the first quarter. A 14-carat white gold and diamond Journey Curve pendant, princess-cut diamond rings and 1-carat round-cut diamond stud earrings were sales leaders. Black-diamond pendants and diamond-accented watches also did very well with consumers. Prices for these items swung from $200 to $40,000.
In the first quarter, the company added about 450 new styles to its jewelry collection, where the black diamond Infinity pendant turned out to be most wanted.  Hot selling diamond watches included the Movado Diamond Amorosa timepiece, the Seiko Coutura timepiece and the Invicta Limited Edition Diamond timepiece.

The Harry Winston Diamond Corporation posted record consolidated sales last year increasing its gross profit 35 percent with consolidated earnings from operations going up 48 percent compared with the previous year. Annual sales grew 22 percent to US$ 679.3 million, while consolidated earnings from operations reached $217.7 million ($558.8 and $146.8 million one year ago).
Net earnings were brought to $106.4 million ($104.3 million in the prior year).
Its mining segment reported an annual sales growth of 24 percent to $413.8 million, while its retail segment posted a 17 percent sales rise resulting in $265.5 million. Earnings from operations for the mining segment increased 53% to $220.7 million. Retail loss amounted to $3.1 million. The company opened five new salons during the 2008 fiscal year as compared to three in the previous year.