Fashion jewellery in vogue

Few decades ago wearing artificial jewellery was meant to be only for people who could not afford the real jewellery. It was considered low standard to wear artificial jewellery. Gold and diamonds were the most popular and precious jewellery choices among people. However with time people’s preferences have changed. The availability of imitation jewellery in beautiful designs and work has also brought a dramatic transformation in people’s preferences.  Also with the ever increasing prices of precious metals everybody can not afford to buy it as frequently as people used to a decade back. This popularity of fashion jewellery has further increased with the emergence of some national retailers in the organised domain via franchising.

Reasons for growing popularity

Jewellery has always been associated with the fairer sex. Increasing number of working women and their daily routine of moving out of home for work, wearing real gold or diamond jewellery is not safe. Moreover these working women are no more interested in heavy traditional jewellery and prefer wearing light weight jewellery for daily routine. Also jewellery manufacturers having understood the need and demand for imitation jewellery have started making beautiful sleek and stylish fashion jewellery, which even real jewellery does not have. To make such jewellery available to people far and wide they have opted for franchise route for expansion. In the present scenario the fashion jewellery market is giving competition to real ornament market for the following factors:

Affordable: The foremost reason for the fashion jewellery sector to gain popularity is its affordability for middle class. As the major population of the country falls under the middle class, most people cannot afford the real but expensive gold and diamond jewellery.

Large variety: Indians, especially the fairer sex have great fondness of wearing matching jewellery to go with their attire. It is impossible to buy real jewellery to go with every dress; therefore fashion jewellery comes into use.

Security factor:  Imitation jewellery is safer to wear as compared to the authentic jewellery. In the present day when theft and crime is increasing in society, customers feel more secure wearing fake jewellery.

Excellent innovative designs: Imitation jewellery comes with unlimited and exquisite designs which can be easily purchased.  

Customised jewellery in vogue

The latest trend in fashion jewellery is of customised jewellery. A brand called Bracialeto has emerged with its new concept of designing jewellery as per choice. Most of the fashion jewellery players make designs according to the latest fashion in the jewellery sector. However, Bracialeto brings a whiff of fresh air in the artificial jewellery sector with its latest designs, made as per the customers’ choice. Regarding its inception Viral Shah, CEO, Bracialeto said: “The idea of Bracialeto originally came to me on a foreign trip. That is when we decided to create our first product and test it in the Indian market. Bracialeto is unique in many ways. The idea of designing one’s own jewellery is our USP. One can choose from a range of interchangeable Murano handmade glass beads in a play of colours and patterns with decorations and intricate lively details. Bracialeto jewellery is crafted in 92.5 per cent sterling silver. Currently, there is no comparable product in the market.”

Players in the artificial sector

With fashion jewellery coming at par with genuine jewellery industry, more and more players are entering and converting it into an organised domain. The prominent players or brands that have opted for franchise route for the expansion and growth of their businesses may include Sia Jewellery Ltd, Trenz Fashion jewellery, DG Fashion by Diagold etc. Sia jewellery has highly benefitted from franchising. It presently has 12 franchised outlets and is growing continuously. The company plans to open 15 new franchise stores mainly in metro cities. Another upcoming brand in the artificial sector, Trenz has16 outlets in Punjab, Haryana and Guwahati out of which six are run by franchisees. DG Fashion another brand of affordable Art Jewellery adopted franchising about three years back. Witnessing the success and progress of mostly all brands in the artificial ornaments sector, new players are emerging in the less organised but highly potential market.

Bracialeto adopted the franchise route after seeing its popularity among customers. As shared by Shah: “After a year and half of Bracialeto’s launch, we decided to take the franchise route. Franchisee’s knowledge and interaction is the key for satisfaction here. The franchisee has an edge in terms of local knowledge and a low cost outlay. This partnership ideally proves as a win-win situation for both. This in turn, helps the company achieve speedy expansion and we believe that this is the perfect route for Bracialeto.”

To conclude it would be apt to say that the fashion jewellery industry has a lot of potential for both franchisees as well as customers. New ideas within costume jewellery can surely add to the growth of the jewellery industry as a whole. In words of Shah: “Accessories are the fastest growing market, especially in the fashion and imitation jewellery segment. India with 17 per cent of world’s population has the lowest median age of 24. However, the growth story has just started.”