On 3rd June finished one of the biggest fairs of high-end jewellery in the world – the JCK in Las Vegas.
A giant construction site, crowds of tourists, new hotels – this is Vegas. In the city centre, near the famous Strip, next to the Wynn, built not long ago, this year another twin megahotel, the Encore, has been erected. Just near the Venetian hotel there is a new skyscraper – the Palazzo Hotel. Opposite one of the biggest complex in the area, The Jockey Club, is being built. Very close to it we can see a construction process of the most modern jewellery centre in the world – an impressive skyscraper made of glass and steel. Casinos full of people, hummers-limousines in the streets, 30 metre high outdoor screens invite you to go shopping to a new fashion centre – The Miracle Mile. Nothing indicates a crisis in the USA. One can have similar impression on the JCK fair which is held in the centre of Las Vegas – the Sands Expo Center next to the Venetian hotel. The most popular was a high-end jewellery with the most expensive stones – so the majority of visitors could be noticed in the Luxury section.
The JCK fair is difficult. Firstly, because of its scale: 3100 booths located on a few storeys (almost 200 000 m
2 of exhibition surface), complex organization (Reed Expo being the fair owner and Freeman Group dealing with a technical service of the whole event), difficult logistics. In order to get to the exhibition hall from a twelve storey car park you have to go through the impressive Venetian hotel – such walk takes approximately 40 minutes, and the exit from the garage after the end of a fair day takes about 1.5 hour of driving around the car park supervised by dozens of policemen. It is not easy to get to the JCK – potential exhibitors usually wait a few years to have a possibility to present themselves in the main hall. This year, because of a higher (50% in comparison with 2007) cost of booths and also unstable situation on the market, a lot of companies, which had been present on the JCK for years, has decided not to take part in the fair. So during this year’s edition we could see a lot of new participants (among others two companies selling jewellery made of amber: Amberman from California, which was described in the portal, and Russian Liasons from New York). The buyers also find it difficult to get to the JCK: everybody who applies for a buyer’s badge has to present photos of his or her store, three invoices from this year amounting to USD 10 000 and other documents connected with a company’s business activity – such procedures result in the fact that the fair is available only for the best clients from all over the world.
The JCK is mostly diamonds and exclusive jewellery, and also a very extensive review of international pavilions: among others there were exhibitors from Italy, Hongkong, India (a big hand for promotion!), Thailand, Turkey, Brazil, Korea and Mexico – it is not possible to list everybody. Poland was represented in the booth of the
International Amber Association (Amber Apple and Amber Globe), which was as usual situated in the main alley on the first level. Next to it there was a posh booth of S&A and Vessel and Dejwis, and also Jubilex (world’s fair) and Ambermoda (the Stylemakers section). The jewellery made of amber was also presented by American companies: already mentioned
Amberman, Russian Liasons and a legendary company from Manhattan – Valerio888 (the best buyer of the Amberif fair in 2006). Two years ago Valerio introduced so-called Caribbean amber into the market – although this artificially coloured green fossil resin is quite a controversial material, its promotion (e.g. in the “JCK Magazine”) was carried out in a very successful way, and Valerio offers the jewellery on a very high level, also with Baltic amber. In the JCK there were present also other “friends” from the portal – among others
Starborn Creations, which in its offer has amber combined with untypical minerals. Italian and German pavilions provided optimistic observations – amber set in gold is sold in a very high price.
It can be said that the “lower” hall (that is level 1) is just a foretaste of a luxury, which is situated on the higher storeys of the JCK. On the second level one could see the most expensive diamonds in the world, designer jewellery, platinum jewellery, watches, pearls etc. In the Designs Center on the second storey there was also amber – thanks to the company already present in the portal,
Cool Design from Switzerland. A prestigeous nature of the upper storey of the JCK is emphasized by the alleys’ names: Fifth Avenue, Luxury Collection, Rodeo Drive, Prestige Promenade, Plumb Club and Grande Plaza.
Special guests of this year’s edition of the JCK were such stars as Andre Agassi (promoting Longines watches) and Russel Simmons. The fair was accompanied by banquets, symposiums and a lot of other attractive events. There is no doubt that the JCK Las Vegas fair determines trend in the “high-end” jewellery. That is why it is very good that Polish amber is present on it.
In the next report you will find a commercial summary of the fair.
Photo: The stand of Cool Design from Switzerland (on the top) and Jan Pashkovski from New York. Photo by Malgorzata Gliwinska
