High-End Brands Showed their Stuff at The Luxury Review Event

YNY Jewels specializes in well-designed pieces made with fancy colored diamonds, colored gemstones and precious metals.

LOS ANGELES — Jewelry and watches shared the spotlight with luxury brands from an array of industries during the recently held The Luxury Review: Los Angeles at The Petersen Automotive Museum.

Bozeman Watch Company is one of a few timepiece companies based in the U.S.

Hosted by Rand Luxury, the event brings together brands from multiple industries including automotive, jewelry, resorts, spirits, electronics and home design. These companies get exposure through a guest list that includes press and media, product analysts, studio executives, product integration and product placement professionals, tv/film producers, personal shoppers, stylists and of course affluent consumers.

Based in the The Woodlands, Texas, Dannini specializes in diamond jewelry designs.

The event was held October 3 and about 30 brands participated. There was food, wine and champagne and free samples from several vendors.

B.M.R. Watches specializes in high-end, high-performance mechanical timepieces primarily for auto racing enthusiasts. These are the creations of watchmaker Bernard Richards. Brand ambassadors in the racing world include: Jean-Eric Vergne, Manu Collard and Cyrille Lemoine.

The next Luxury Review will be held in New York on October 17 at the Metropolitan Pavilion.

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Gemfields Kagem Emerald Mine Showed Solid Annual Growth Despite Conflict With Zambian Government

Coomi 20K yellow gold with Gemfields’ Zambian emeralds, 120.34 carats and diamonds, 5.21 carats.

Production at the Gemfields Kagem emerald mine in Zambia increased 42 percent to 29.99 million carats for the 12-month period ended in June.

The average grade for the year increased 38 percent to 283 carats per ton, the company said Monday through the Proactive Investors website. Meanwhile, production costs fell 26 percent in the year.

Gemfields is a colored gemstone exploration, mining and marketing company. The Kagem mine is the London-listed company’s biggest asset and it provides nearly all of its revenue, even though it has interest in other colored gemstone mines. It owns a 75-percent share of the Kagem mine with the Zambian government owning the remaining 25 percent.

One of Gemfields other mines is the Montepuez ruby deposit in Mozambique. The company said it is on track to hold its first auction of rough rubies in the first quarter of 2014.

Gemfields also owns Fabergé, which it fully acquired in January. The company said the luxury jewelry brand achieved a record number of unit sales for the year.

A sale of lower quality emeralds in April netted $15.2 million, Gemfields said. Not included in the annual results was its latest auction of higher quality emeralds, held in the Zambian capital of Lusaka. This brought in revenues of $31.5 million, the second highest total ever for an auction of its kind.

The auction was originally scheduled in June in Singapore but pressure from the Zambian government to move the auction to Zambia caused the auction to be postponed until July, after the reporting period. Where to hold auctions has been a source of debate since April when the government of Zambia, Gemfields business partner, issued a directive for Gemfields to hold its auction within the country’s borders, citing capital flight.

Ian Harebottle, Gemfields CEO, said through Proactive Investors that communication between the two parties is now “much, much better” and more interactive.

However, Harebottle said the company continues “to seek guidance and to interact with the Government of Zambia.” Gemfields argues that it needs to sell Kagem emeralds at places that will likely get the most interest and the best price.

“While the two auctions held in Lusaka this year have certainly been successful, the key question, of course, remains what they would have generated had they been held abroad (where competing and undermining sources of supply, frequently illegal, are not readily available to our customers) and their potential impact on the long term growth of this sector,” he said.

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