When the authorities need help cracking tough cases, they call psychics; when jewelers want to know trends, they turn to seer of style, JCKstyle (Carrie Soucy, Laura Finkelstein, and me).
No trend is safe from discovery by our trio of trend-finding sleuths. Some call our lifestyle clairvoyance a gift while others say our powers are downright spooky. But, all we know is that our paranormal talent can help retailers.
If you want to know what’s on the jewelry trend horizon, ensure your JCK magazine subscriptions are current, because we offer fashionable insights in every issue. Following are a few of our recent triumphs.
Oversize Cuffs on the Red Carpet. As JCKstyle prepared its premiere Hollywood (2007) or Red Carpet issue, a collective premonition occurred: starlets would wear oversize cuffs at the Academy Awards. In fact, Carrie Soucy was even more specific: she said that someone would wear a bracelet made by Brazilian jeweler H. Stern.
Certain her fashion prediction would come true, JCKstyle featured an H. Stern diamond buckle cuff, from the jeweler’s 2007 Red Carpet collection, in an article about the trend of oversize bracelets. On the night of the awards, JCKstyle rejoiced in its accuracy as Emily Blunt from The Devil Wears Prada was photographed wearing that very same bracelet.
Imperfect Jewelry Pairs. As the fashion team prepared the February 2007 Upfront Fashion section of JCK Magazine, I made a crazy call—“Mismatched jewelry will grow in popularity.” Yeah, totally nutty, I know! I mean, everybody knows that gemstone cutters sell perfectly matched pairs. But, I proceeded with the article anyway, illustrating it with several different examples of jewelry featuring imperfectly matched stones and shapes. The piece ran in February 2007 on page 63. A month later, the March issue of W Magazine featured “She’s Come Undone, The key to spring’s romantic look is dressing perfectly imperfect.” Correctness—again—tasted sweet.
Biker Chic. The theme of the fashion photo shoot in the premiere issue of JCKstyle (spring 2006) focused on edgy motifs and symbols. These included skull and crossbones, handcuffs, thorns—symbols of nefarious characters—with a feminine skew. The idea was radical, for us and for our readers, who’d been accustomed to seeing more conservative themes (like flowers) in print. But at this point in time, readers were starting to realize the strong link between fine jewelry and runway fashion, so the statement would be timely as well as accurate. Plus, we had a feeling about this idea, a really strong feeling that we’d be right.
And do you know what happened? (If you’ve been reading this post, of course you do.) Other media outlets publicized the trend after we did. In particular, USA Today—America’s most widely read newspaper—printed an article about the trend two months after our article ran. Right on—on trend, I say.
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