It is only when you encounter the quality of design and materials that is on show at the first Jeddah International Jewelry Salon and Exhibition this week in Jeddah’s Hilton Hotel that the difference between the pretentious and the truly talented becomes obvious. Dotted among the international exhibitors, many showing in the Kingdom for the first time, is the occasional example of “high-street” fashion but the show is dominated by some exotic designs and superb quality of craftsmanship and gemstones.
About as far as possible from the design dilettante as it is possible to get and a patriarch in the exotic world of fine jewelry is Fulvio Scavia who is the third generation of a family dedicated to designing and making jewelry. He set his personal marker down when he was 19 years old, by winning the Diamonds Today award. Winner of the Diamond International award 15 times over years, he first came to Saudi Arabia two decades ago against the flow of conventional advice with his exotic organic style of jewelry.
“People told me that my designs were too advanced and that the people here were more conservative. I didn’t care; we got very good customers and we worked very well, particularly on special designs” he said reflecting on his association with the Kingdom.
“After 20 years I can say that taste has evolved, you can see it not just in jewelry but in architecture as well. Over the years coming here I have noticed a shift in tastes of design. It’s very advanced.”
He mused that when clients were new to jewelry, the tendency is to opt for diamonds and in the early days of his career in the Kingdom, big ones. Now taste has evolved greatly and is far more sophisticated.
“When you become more sophisticated you like more and more the rare colored stones. Not just the ruby, emerald and sapphire but alexandrite and tanzanite for example.”
Scavia has shops in Moscow, Tokyo, Bangkok and other capitals and so has a wide spread of knowledge about taste and culture. He observed, counter-intuitively to the assumption that the Kingdom was deeply conservative in its tastes, that in his experience there were two places where he sold the most sophisticated pieces: Saudi Arabia and Russia.
An international designer and businessman, Scavia is still very much the craftsman. “Making, creation, design – it’s what I like. I still sit at the bench and make pieces,” he said. “If not, we are not Scavia.”
Home-grown design is represented in the exhibition by the Mohammed Fitaihi Junior. Fitaihi is a designer through and through. “We do not feature any jewelry that does not come out of our own workshops. We design only and outsource the making to different parts of the world.”
Influenced by the traditions of Mogul, Victorian and Ottoman design, Fitahi’s pieces while echoing traditional designs of the past incorporate fine stones with great intricacy of craftsmanship.
A feature of the designer-jewelers, Scavia and Fitaihi included, is that they tend to hold a Fellowship of the Gemmological Association of Great Britain or Graduate Gemologist of the Gemological Institute of America. These titles are only achieved after years of study of precious stones.
It is almost inevitable that the understanding developed over that time triggers a passion for stones that is reflected in the use of exotic and rare specimens in the designs. Fitaihi’s pieces reflect that passion with the abundant use of colored stones particularly tri-colored tourmaline.
Fitaihi reflected on the changes that had overtaken the jewelry business worldwide since 9/11. Jewelers were encouraged to invest in stones rather than craftsmanship to maximize the income from sales as the money returned to the Kingdom.
This he felt encouraged new competitors into the market including stone producers – de Beers being one example.
“High-income buyers became more selective, did not buy the big stones and looked to satisfy their desires in a different way,” he said. That market shifted and went for designer, lifestyle, exclusivity and branding, returning to the market mix of the 1990’s.
“It was in design terms a change from an expression of wealth to an expression of self,” he observed.
It caused a resurgence of design as a major force in the market rather that the ostentatious expression of wealth. Jewelers who did not catch on to this and relied on big stones, suffered.
Even the prestigious diamond house Graff Diamonds has moved, to an extent, into colored stones. Some of the startling clean-limbed designs set glowing emeralds and deep red rubies nestling in a sea of coruscating white diamond off to perfection. Founder Laurence Graff is about diamonds and visiting the Kingdom as an exhibitor for the first time, the firm has brought some of their more exotic colored diamonds for viewing.
Chief amongst these are the clean yellow or “fancy” diamonds that Graff uses in abundance in the showpieces. They are only a small part of both Graff’s immense stock of some of the world’s finest diamonds but they also represent a tiny part of the color range of diamond – quite literally from black to white and the whole spectrum of hues in between.
Following the move of the high-end global towards color, Graff is moving too, but characteristically by exploiting the color range of diamond. Buyer or window shopper, The Jeddah International Jewellery Salon and Exhibition is something very special indeed. For those with a serious interest in jewelry or who simply want to see the world’s best in design and precious stones, the show runs until May 6.