ON THE COVER:
Model Wearing Jewellery from Rebecca’s Half Moon collection, a perfect way to dress up a little black dress and a black feather shawl.
See Rebecca’s Cover Feature HIGHLIGHT

With the cold weather behind us—at least in the northern hemisphere for those of you reading this Down Under—we are entering another summer, a season full of colour in both fashion and jewellery. With lots of colour on the runways, we also see jewellery designers coming out with statement-making, vibrantly coloured gemstone pieces. Some are now mentioning Pantone’s colour picks, which we have been featuring for the last two years, and are basing their creations on such tones as “Tangerine Tango,” among other Spring/Summer 2012 shades.

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In our Winter trends guide, in addition to featuring the top ten trends in jewellery design, we highlighted the main colours for the S/S 2012 season. In this issue, we continue with a peek at Pantone’s Fall 2012 palette for fashion, and suggest examples of matching jewellery. The strongest colour, and a continuation from S/S 2012, is the bright orange of Tangerine Tango. The other nine are featured in our “Colour Trends” section. In our “Trends & Colours” section, we feature four of the most popular gemstone colours—orange, blue, green, and violet.

	A gown by Barbara Tfank, using the Pantone colours of Pink Flambé and Honey Gold.

It has been a very busy Winter and Spring fair season, and we report here on the many interesting and creative pieces seen from A to V, from Amberif, i n Poland, to Vicenza, in Italy, passing by Geneva, Basel, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tucson, Phoenix, and Doha. Following the visit to Gdansk to attend Amberif, we highlight this fascinating living gemstone in the article “Amber’s Attractive Appeal.” In addition to the wide range of amber creations at the show, we were impressed by the laboratory, organized by the fair, which provided free testing of any amber—set or unset. The fair is quite strict about keeping fakes out and enforces the rule that its exhibitors provide full disclosure of any treatments—another way to ensure buyers that they are purchasing “the real deal.”

Disclosure has become an issue in our industry, with a few unscrupulous dealers selling synthetics or “enhanced” stones as natural. We saw this firsthand at a recent fair, where a retailer purchased 35 lots of stones, only to have them checked by an expert who found that all but two were misrepresented—they were either synthetics or were subject to treatments that were not disclosed. The story ended well, however, as she and the gemmologist confronted the seller, and eventually got the money back. While there is certainly nothing wrong with selling treated or synthetic stones, the key word is “disclosure.” In this regard, see the article in this issue “Buyer Beware – Is it Natural, Treated, or Synthetic?” Our usual designer profiles, a review of the book “The Myth of the Million Dollar Di$hrag,” and page of testimonials about CIJ Trends & Colours, round out this issue.

We look forward to meeting many of you at the upcoming shows, and in the meantime, enjoy your summer.

Cynthia Unninayar