By Matter of Form

A study of the shifts forging the future of the fine jewellery industry, in both the short and long term, from modern heirlooms and sustainable material innovations to the undeniable impact of artificial intelligence.

2023 was another wild chapter for the jewellery sector – the NFT hype gave way to a new optimism around web3 technologies; self-giving became a primary purchasing driver; playful, statement pieces retained pole position and pearls made a comeback with the rise of old-money aesthetics and quiet luxury trends. 

Currently valued at just over $350b USD, the global jewellery market has a projected 4.7% growth rate that will send that number sky-high to $482b by 2030. But the coming years will also see huge shifts in market shares and demand – because while diamonds may be forever, audiences certainly aren’t. 

From the vantage of boardrooms all over the world, it’s easy to view both Gen Z and Alpha as agents of chaos. They’re recalibrating the world, luxury included. Those who fear – or are even wary of – change cast them as dystopian makers. But one person’s disruption is another’s enrichment. 

Like it or not, these younger cohorts will have the spending power to make or break brands in no less than a decade, and they wield that power confidently. These are generations who shaped their values and attitudes early, caring little about pre-millennium hardships but a lot about sustainability, social impact and doing better, especially when it comes to luxury. Along with their higher standards, they’re willing to pay higher prices — seeing them as investments.

In homage to these attitudes, fine jewellery newcomers are tearing up the product design rulebook; embracing the radical, finding opportunity in inconsistency, breaking binaries and subverting convention. 

Last year, challenger brands and emerging players produced genderless collections with seditious undercurrents, playing into threads known to be tangled with the majority of younger generations. 

However – 2024 looks to be a turning point for rigid demographical targets in more than just gender. By 2030 many dominant powers including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the States will have record old-age populations, giving way to often overlooked nations like India, Mexico and regions of Southeast Asia for brands hyperfocused on younger audiences. But what about the upper ends of populations? 

Despite still possessing huge spending power, Gen X, boomers and every generation above are being dismissed by many. Brands, especially those with majority bases in the West, need to start taking notice of an emerging flat age culture – a lateral spectrum based on values, not age – as well as the multi-generational potential of quality products.

PREDICTED JEWELLERY TRENDS 2024: WHAT’S NOW

Because of the often temporary nature of trends, we qualify them based on their long-term potential for brands – those that sit within wider social and cultural shifts like desires for longevity, the experience economy and more.

MODERN HEIRLOOMS

According to intelligence platform Stylus, consumer desire for modern-day heirloom pieces is on the rise. “Watches, pendants, brooches (including those for men) and rings form the focus in terms of key items, while interesting material mixes define the aesthetic – Cultural and family-based imagery and icons add to the keepsake appeal.”

It’s a desire that tracks with wider luxury audience shifts and the asset culture so prevalent in 2024. As we continue to move into the value era, where possessions are assets and worth is defined by more than price tags, buyers are increasingly perceiving their purchases as investments – focusing on high-quality items with meaning and durability.

Brands tapping in consist of the usual suspects: Rolex, Hermès, etc., but the market is vast. HIE, for example, is continuing the Hawaiian tradition – originated by the archipelago’s last monarch, Queen Liliʻuokalani – of crafting and passing down gold bangles. Etched with special sentiments, cultural designs and names, their heirlooms are decidedly regal pieces that honour culture, custom and, through the gifting of them from one matriarch to the next, familial lineage. 

For those who covet the story as much as the stones themselves, Ming Jewellery designs one-of-a-kind pieces in the heart of London’s Notting Hill. The brand’s CEO & Founder, Ming Lampson, is a renowned jewellery designer whose lifelong love for precious gems has taken her from Galway all the way to the Pink City of Jaipur. Taking jewellery’s sustainable future on Matter of Form’s What the Luxe podcast, Ming dives into the magic of making by hand and why it’s storytelling that gives a piece meaning.

Brands should be thinking about their collections and key pieces, how they can create value beyond high price points, using details of craft, stories and tech to bring the inanimate to life and then extending that lifecycle — over and over again.

CULTURE DRIP

2023 was the year jewellery literally took centre stage. Throughout her Renaissance World Tour, Beyoncé wowed crowds in a series of custom designs created by the tour’s official jeweller Tiffany & Co. Inspired by The Tiffany Archives and the House’s signature collections, as well as bespoke Tiffany creations, the acclaimed artist’s looks included a minidress made entirely of diamonds, a metallised silver peephole cowboy hat and a Tiffany blue couture ensemble with a custom collar.

Tiffany & Co. had a busy year - bookended by two partnerships with pop culture ties. In January the fabled jewellery house collaborated with Nike on a pair of all black Air Force 1s with a Tiffany blue swoosh. In late November, the brand teamed up with contemporary artist Daniel Arsham on a Pokémon capsule collection featuring crystallised sculptures each housed within a crafted Poké Ball-style box – I’m sure you can guess what colour.

Meanwhile, to commemorate the US National Basketball Association's 75th anniversary season, Hennessy has teamed up with Parisian jeweller Lorenz Bäumer to create a new Hennessy Paradis magnum: a crystal basketball to magnify an exceptional cognac and pay tribute to the most famous basketball league of all time. 

The craftsmanship tells the story of the NBA through its details – the box’s gold pattern is reminiscent of parquet wooden floors for example. 

These are only a few examples of how luxury brand strategy is being flipped on its head, becoming far more bottom-up than most anticipated. Chasing fleeting fads is futile, obviously, but tastes and preferences aren’t coming from the top anymore. The tastemakers are found in niche communities and subcultures or around specific events - brands are just going to have to find them first.

BLOCK-CHAINS

NFTs in 2024 are a bit like Marmite. But even the sceptics need to keep one (albeit wary) eye on web3, blockchain technologies and the metaverse. We may be in the underbelly of the hype cycle now, but as with every tech revolution that has come before, ignorance can be perilous. 

By the end of 2027, the NFT market has the potential to be worth $13b with a CAGR of 35%. And it makes sense. NFTs possess many of the qualities that make traditional luxury so coveted. Rarity. Scarcity. Innovation. Endurance. Authenticity.

The Aura Blockchain Consortium, collaboratively launched by Richemont, LVMH and Prada Group in 2021, focuses primarily on the latter – authenticating luxury products by assigning each a unique digital identity. Similar tech is employed by Icecap, an Ethereal-based Diamond NFT Marketplace. 

Usually sold in limited editions or one-off sales, digital assets & NFTs possess the same allure as provenance does for avid collectors of any rare or fine item. It’s no secret aesthetes pay hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pounds and dollars to own the real thing, whatever it may be. 

Plenty of luxury brands see the potential. Along with Tiffany’s and Bulgari, New York-based jeweller Amadeo, British blockchain diehard Simone Faurschou and royal-warrant holders Asprey have all incorporated NFTs into their product offerings. Some have even built their brand around it — Metagolden claims to be the original blockchain jewellery brand and the future of retail.

Other brands place more emphasis on wearability than those using blockchain tech purely as a platform for digital ownership. Jewellery label Räthel & Wolf launched their digital arm in July 2022, offering customers the chance to download digital versions of their designs to either be worn in the metaverse or 3D-printed in a material of the user’s choice. 

IMMERSIVE TROVES

“Jewellery has a challenge: products are precious, under a window, we don't encourage customers to touch. So, we do it with other products such as leather goods and accessories. How to be inviting while being luxurious and exclusive, how to be inviting without being banal? That’s the jewellery paradox,” - Cyrille Vigneron, CEO of Cartier

Once considered the most revered shopping experience, the atmosphere of a traditional luxury jeweller’s flagship is now rendered prosaic to many. The romance of browsing and purchasing in-store is facing a reckoning. To appeal to luxury’s ever-diversifying audience, a brand’s four walls must transform themselves into tactile, sensory experiences – harking back to notions of shopping for pleasure but in newer, more immersive ways. 

Hypersurrealism has been a popular lens to reimagine brand mythology through travelling exhibitions. Gucci Cosmos made waves at 180 Studios in London when it opened in October 2023, becoming part of an emerging tradition of immersive installations powered by luxury brands. 

Celebrating over one hundred years of watchmaking, Cartier debuted its ‘Time Unlimited’ exhibition in Hong Kong in 2022. Since then the red-wrapped structure has been a must-visit experience in Seoul, Beijing and, as of December 2023, Miami.  

Inside, four interconnected chambers lead to a large open space for close encounters with the brand and its collections - each with its own soundscape and visual projections. More than your average gallery or museum, it’s what NYC-based horology news site Hodinkee calls “bigger-picutre impact.”, “contemporary and bold”.

Also celebrating a milestone, Bulgari’s artistic initiative Serpenti Factory and exhibition ‘75 Years of Infinite Tales’ opened in Milan in 2023. An homage to their iconic watch and coiled collection that has been symbolic of the brand since the collection’s launch in the 1940s, the activation toured in Shanghai and Seoul before landing in the Italian capital of fashion. 

Alongside a retrospective of Serpenti’s history (a model perfected by many luxury houses), Bulgari commissioned six artists to interpret the collection in a variety of mediums. Creative Director Lucia Silvestri told Wallpaper*: “Our mission is to maintain the DNA of the brand through creativity and innovation, with new materials and new craft, – We chose these six artists because we wanted to see how they could explain our history with different eyes. It’s been so interesting to see all the interpretations.”

Imaginations truer to the conventional store (rather than an art gallery) are also acting as peak brand interactions for discerning customers. German jeweller brand Avgvst’s Berlin store features a pop-up-style tattoo parlour with residencies of local artists while a garden area hosts meditation, yoga and other wellness events.

In China, the walls surrounding the spiral staircase of Gucci's Chengdu store include AI-generated imagery that merges the urban landscapes of Florence, where Gucci opened its first stores in 1921, with the mountains of Chengdu. A realistic touch is added by the active elements of the artwork, such as the flying birds.

There are big handfuls of examples like these, of luxury jewellers innovating the in-store experience. And as more pop up, the greater the innovations will be.

THE FUTURE OF THE JEWELLERY INDUSTRY: WHAT’S NEXT

Trends beginning to gain traction, driven by innovators and endorsed by early adopters who aren’t letting themselves be limited by their assigned category. 

CONSCIOUS CARATS

Sustainability is a baseline for new luxurians. Merely having a commitment statement to reduce your brand’s carbon footprint is nothing to write home about anymore. Those who do cut through the performative noise are crafting exactly what luxury audiences didn’t even know they wanted – owning beautiful pieces in ways that uphold planetary health, inclusivity, social progression and a more liberal way of living. Primarily through futuristic material innovations. 

In 2023, Swiss horologist Hublot collaborated with Nespresso to craft a new timepiece model from used coffee grounds and aluminium capsules. An artefact of circular design, the lengthily-named Hublot Big Bang Unico Nespresso Origin is a physical embodiment of the values the two Swiss brands share: innovation, quality and sustainability. Waste coffee grounds are transformed into both rubber and fabric watch straps while recycled Nespresso capsules become part of the piece’s case, bezel, crown and pushers.

In 2022, luxury maison Boucheron launched an innovative capsule collection made from Cofalit — a material derived from depolluted asbestos. Though the collection, titled ‘The Jack de Boucheron Ultime range’, is still in its relative infancy due to the unknown nature of how the black, stone-like substance performs over time, the move continues to hold its own as one of the boldest disruptions to the conventions in fine jewellery manufacturing in recent years.

Similarly, to combat controversial practices associated with diamond mining and present a contributing solution in response to the climate crisis, Aether are creating lab-grown diamonds with 100% atmospheric carbon. Direct air capture technology is used to extract CO2 from our air before being synthesised and placed into clean energy-powered chemical reactors where diamonds will grow. The fully formed, cut and finished crystals are then distributed to be worn by stylish, savvy and sustainable shoppers around the world.

EXTENSIONS OF THE HOUSE

Jeweller’s ateliers go back centuries. But in 2024, we’re seeing brands give a whole new meaning to The House. The sector’s foray into the hospitality world is gaining momentum, propelled mainly by the success of Bulgari Hotels & Resorts – founded way back in 2004.

Since then, the brand has opened nine hotels across the world with three more in the pipeline. According to the official site, the collection is “comprised of a few, selected properties in major cosmopolitan cities and luxury resort destinations” – with an aim “to convey the excitement of the Bulgari brand, its timeless glamour and its heritage of magnificent Roman jeweller.” If reviews are anything to go buy, they’ve nailed it. 

Others are following suit in more of a toe-dipping fashion than bursting onto the scene. In 2022, Swiss timepiece manufacturer Audemars Piguet opened the Hôtel des Horlogers in the birthplace of Swiss watchmaking: Vallée de Joux. In the sixteenth century, Geneva imposed a ban on wearing jewellery during a particularly austere period but, because watches sat outside this regulation, the city’s goldsmiths turned their craft to timepieces, as did residents of the valley with little to keep them occupied in snowy winters. 

Signless and set back from the road, the fifty-room boutique hotel is designed to blend into the valley’s undulating topography and sits next to Audemars Piguet’s main headquarters and the Musee Atelier Audemars Piguet, allowing guests to easily explore the legacy watchmakers through several curated packages during their stay.

On top of luxury travel pursuits, the high-net-worth cohort of 2024 is leaning into a domestic leisure trend, opting for hospitality-inspired homes. Branded residences are on the rise, with plenty of luxury marques, including Porsche, Lamborghini, Bentley and Bugatti, making a name for themselves in property. Among them (following a tumultuous few years) is Swiss fine jewellery label De Grisogono, who are architecting a branded residential tower in Dubai for their ultra-luxe clientele. Details are light on the ground but, if successful, could put De Grisogono back on the map in one of luxury’s biggest hotspots for the coming years.

Not just another business division, hospitality and real estate offerings from horologists and jewellery houses are major building blocks towards extensive brand worlds – a site for complete immersion into a designed experience that puts buyers and brands at the centre.

GEM-ERATIVE AI

The jewellery industry is not exempt from the infinitely far reach of artificial intelligence. Equal parts fascinating, exciting and anxiety-inducing, the technology offers boundless possibilities for the luxury sector. In a more granular sense it can aid CX, design innovation, sustainability and manufacturing impact to name a few. 

In the design process advanced algorithms can analyze historical trends, customer preferences, and cultural influences to generate innovative and aesthetically pleasing designs – not only expediting the design phase but it ensures that products align closely with market demands, ultimately enhancing the appeal. 

In 2022, sustainable jewellery brand J’EVAR began using generative AI and computer-aided design (CAD) in their new product development to boost the brand’s sustainability efforts. The company’s in-house AI tool allows J’EVAR’s craftsmen to input information about a product’s materials and specifications to then receive as many iterations of the design in selected style, metal width and weight as needed.

CEO & founder Amish Shah says using AI in this way saves J’EVER weeks of manual design on products as well as elevating their sustainability efforts by determining exact material amounts before crafting a piece to massively reduce waste.