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International Herald Tribune

12 Saturday-Sunday, February 11-12, 2006 Fashion
Europeans mount a sporty challenge

Menkes
Suzy
New York
Collections
The
Catwalking.com
A prancing Grace Jones, left, at Diesel and Yohji Yamamoto’s Y-3 line, which had vaguely 1980s silhouettes.

ith New York’s designers of- DIESEL: DENIM DISH a theme and stuffed ravens dangling

W fering evening outfits and up-

town glamour, European fash-
ion houses have been challenging
America with sportswear.
MALO: KNIT-WIT
Italy’s Malo sent out on the runway
just the soft and stroke-able knitwear
on which it has built an international
reputation. As well as cashmere winter
knits, there were ultra-fine gauge knit-
ted dresses or the button-through car-
digan dress cinched with a belt. The
designer Fabio Piras brought fashion
touches from a cape-shouldered coat
through a woven bag and cord belts.
Not that all was heavyweight winter-
wear — there were also fine gauge knit-
ted dresses and evening looks.
By the time Grace Jones took to the
runway, yelling and prancing in a stud-
ded leather hooded outfit, Diesel had
put out its message: jeans, leather and a
whiff of the 1980s. The theme was Man-
hattan’s infamous Chelsea Hotel,
which seemed to greet all types,
judging by the eclectic mix on the run-
way. The show had energy but not
much direction.
Y-3: GOTH STUFF
When the Japanese designer Yohji
Yamamoto first teamed up with Adidas
to create the Y-3 line, it seemed like a
fresh union of conceptual fashion and
sport. But this week’s New York show
with Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘‘The Birds’’ as
overhead was an example of a concept
taking over the clothes. The silhouettes
were vaguely 1980s and some were em-
bellished with appliquéd guns. The
clothes were mostly black but included
some vivid blue and red tracksuits,
high-heeled shoes and an Adidas-stripe
wedding gown.
TROVATO: SKI SLOPE
Trovato is the name of a quartet of
young designers singled out for a
Council of Fashion Designers of Amer-
ica/Vogue award. The Alpine setting
(complete with Saint Bernard dog)
ushered in basic collegiate sportswear,
when multicolored buttons on tweed
pants passed for creative design.
— Suzy Menkes

A Valentine gem a click away

By Jessica Michault much information as possible about the
diamonds online. They do their re-
PARIS search on the Web and have made an
ime is running out to find educated choice before they come into

T that special someone the

perfect Valentine’s Day
gift. While a mad dash to
the flower shop or a red heart
shaped box of chocolates might
have filled the bill in the past,
today’s modern love story
has a new high-tech option
— buying jewelry online.
No need to wait for a
jewelry store to open or to
spend the afternoon going
from shop to shop looking
for just the right bijou. Buy-
ing a pair of diamond ear-
rings, an exotic necklace or
even an engagement ring is
just a click away.
‘‘Buying jewelry online is
comparable to buying any other
gift online,’’ says Liz Chatelain,
president of the Jewelry Con-
sumer Opinion Council. ‘‘The
biggest risk is not fraud but wheth-
er or not she is going to like it.’’
In fact the jewelry industry is one
of the last to join the worldwide web
of commerce with big names like
Zales only recently launching online
stores. ‘‘The retail market has been
holding onto the outdated concept that
people need to touch and feel the jew-
elry,’’ says Chatelain.
The Net is also an alternative for
those nervous consumers who might
feel intimidated by finding themselves
face to face with salespeople talking
about cut, quality and facets and all the
while bombarding them with subtle
questions about budget.
With the Internet, customers can
compare brands, styles and prices on-
line. And with built-in credit card pro-
tection, ‘‘no questions asked’’ money-
back guarantees on offer at many of the
top Web sites and independent dia-
mond certification for fine jewelry
purchases, they can buy a piece online
and try it out in private at home, thus
eliminating the pressure that can come
from a salesperson hovering in the
background.
‘‘The whole thing about buying jew-
elry online is a lot less scary and much
more accessible,’’ says the British jew-
elry designer Solange Azagury Part-
ridge, who created a popular line of in-
expensive, limited-edition jewelry for
H & M for Christmas. ‘‘If a woman is
willing to spend two to four grand on a
suit online, I don’t see why she can’t
buy a piece of jewelry the same way,’’
says the designer who, for the moment,
only uses her Web site, www.so-
langeazagurypartridge.com, as an on-
line look book for her fine jewelry cre-
ations.
This style of designer jewelry Web
site, however, will soon be obsolete.
‘‘Information-only Web sites are a
thing of the past,’’ says Chatelain. ‘‘Jew-
elers should have 80 percent of their
goods online and ready to purchase,’’ if
they want to stay competitive.
For Michel Einhorn, the founder and
managing director of the British com-
pany Cool Diamonds (www.cooldia-
monds.com), which has become one of
Europe’s largest Internet-based jew-
elry companies, the key to online suc-
cess comes from educating his custom-
ers as well as giving them a large
WWW.DIOR.COM selection of goods.
‘‘Most people don’t know anything
about diamonds. We want to empower
our customers, so we give them as
our store,’’ says Einhorn.
HIs company’s largest percentage of
sales is in engagement rings. He said,
however, that in most cases, men
buying an engagement ring really
only come into the store for the
final purchase because ‘‘they
don’t want to say they bought it
on the Internet.’’ He added that
most repeat customers never
come back to the brick and mortar
store after their initial purchase.
Some customers, of course, still
prefer to know that there is a real
store out there somewhere (just in
case). But as consumers become
more comfortable buying jewelry
online, the need for a storefront
guarantee will dwindle when
compared to the cost benefits from
buying directly off the Internet, on-
line jewelers say, noting that their
prices are lower because they can cut
out several middlemen.
Take the case of cooldiamonds.com
which started up in 1999. It has seen its
total sales grow 660 percent over the
past six years. The company claims
that it costs 40 percent less to buy with
them than on the high street. It also of-
fers 3D images of each diamond and
has a new OGI Tender machine that
Aztec cross can analyse the quality of every facet of
pendant, a diamond. Other online jewelers like
above, by the bluenile.com, 77diamonds.com, dia-
designer Iradj mond.com have similar options.
Moini is Many of these sites work directly
available at with gemstone mines. According to
Vivre.com. Einhorn, this allows them to offer a lar-
Below, diamond ger variety of jewelry and prices than
ring and diamond their brick and mortar counterparts.
and white gold pin For Americans there is the added bo-
by Jasper Conran nus that there are no sales taxes on In-
are on sale at ternet purchases. ‘‘And when you are
cooldiamond s.com. buying diamonds, that can really make
a difference,’’ says Einhorn.
Companies like neimanmarcus.com,
Vivre.com and cooldiamonds.com try
to build consumer confidence by team-
ing up with brand name designers.
Cooldiamonds.com has created exclu-
sive jewelry lines with the British fash-
ion designers Jasper Conran and Bruce
Oldfield. The Internet branch of the
high-end department store Neiman
Marcus counts household jewelry
names like David Yurman and Me&Ro
among its most popular designers.
Vivre.com, meanwhile, has decided to
go with a more eclectic group of de-
signers known for big and bold jewelry
like Robert Goossens and Iradj Moini.
‘‘Name recognition is very big,’’ says
Eva Jeanbart-Lorenzotti, president and
founder of Vivre.com, which was
launched in 2000 to complement the
Vivre luxury catalogue business.
‘‘Buying jewelry is a very personal
thing. People want something special
and different which is something the
Internet can help them find without
putting on any pressure to buy,’’ adds
Jeanbart-Lorenzotti, who also noted
that more and more women are feeling
very at ease buying fine jewelry for
themselves.
So maybe this Valentine’s Day those
boyfriends and husbands who trudge
home with a dozen red roses might dis-
cover their better half scrolling the
Web for something a little more origi-
nal and a little more expensive to mark
the occasion.
Jessica Michault is on the staff of the
International Herald Tribune.