There is no single sector, no single production that does not contribute in its own way to the marketing of the “cause bijoux”. The secret of its success? Affordable items with indisputable aesthetic “value”. This unlimited diffusion has naturally its cons that pair with the quality of productions. “Historical” cycles and recycles, labels, reputation, and the disparaging use or not of the words “custom jewellery” … alternate themselves according to the fashion of the moment and to the market penetration of “culture and investment trends”. These trends sometimes unbalance the market but ensure anyway new windows of interaction with the final Customer, which is what, yesterday and today, defines the market demand. The difference with “yesterday”? A more careful Customer, less willing to invest with no guarantee. Guarantee that in the bijoux sector translates “quality product at competitive price”.

From a modern bit a Bijoux History to the social and geocultural context in which we move today. Assumption: there is a disparaging use of the terms “custom jewellery” that marks the contrast with the French homonymous “bijoux” from which it “culturally” derives; and there is as well a consolidated market penetration on particular scenarios where specific “deviancies” find their natural habitat to put down parasitic and branched roots.

While we write these lines, in Via Mecenate 84 in Milan we are having days dedicated to the Milan Bijoux and Accessories Trend Collections. This is an event wanted and arranged by Club Bi, the Italian group founded in 1995 just with the purpose of protecting and promoting the “Made in Italy and Designed in Italy“ products, and greeting dealers from China, Japan, Russia and United States.

The Bijoux and Accessories Trend Collections is only one of the cultural events (and, naturally, trade) revolving around discussions on “made in italy” and “made in europe” to mark the qualitative difference between European productions and design, and the imported ones. We have already dealt with the exploit of products Made in China or South-East Asia (again in Bijoux Style). Here we want to mark once more the “awakening” (or “revival” as it were) of the quality product, thanks to who actually holds the “power in the market“. That the Lobbies, the Houses, the Groups of Designers, the Communication Agencies, the PRs and the Press Rooms, put the souls in peace. It is not them. No longer.

Therefore, this “turnaround” from the coarse custom jewellery to the quality bijoux, from the imported low-cost/consumption product to a product that “communicates” competence, care for details and design, handmade versus “mould” and mass product and series product, to speak clearly, is the reply of the Real Marketer of (his) territory: the Customer. And today, in the stormy sea of the Crisis (with clear differences that are geoidentifiable, between Nation and Nation), the Customer Expects Quality and Competence. Back to the Origins: Ports and Lighthouses in a Crisis Storm.