Vegas Journeys

Talking of celebrities and jewelry, Joan Rivers highlighted the lighter side of the industry during her keynote opening presentation on Saturday morning at the Sands Expo center. “It’s the jewelry that makes the dress,” she told a standing room only audience of retailers, designers, manufacturers and curious onlookers.  “You can wear the same black dress and the jewelry and accessories, makes it different.”

As far as fashion is concerned, the red-carpet diva holds no prisoners, even family heirlooms shouldn't escape the arms of jewelry police. “Tell your customers its okay to take your pieces that your mothers and grandmothers left you and have them redone so that you will wear it, that’s the advice I give to my daughter Melissa,” she noted.

This morning it was the turn of the Diamond Promotion Service (DPS) to hold court over breakfast. First it was the three-stone dream, then came women and their right hands, now it's the turn of  'journey', the latest promotional campaign by the DPS. A journey diamond jewelry piece is quite simply an item featuring four diamonds or more in a graduating order of size, from small to large, symbolizing, they tell us, a journey of love as it grows through the years. The focus of the breakfast campaign was to ensure that retailers truly understand and can communicate the message to diamond jewelry consumers. Research undertaken by the DPS determined a 70 plus percent resonation rate of the idea with consumers.

The presentation was also the end of a journey for one of the DPS top executives, Lynn Diamond, who will be leaving the DPS, and turning her attention to the corridors of legality.