More men are embracing jewellery
4.1 k views | By Gretel Hunnerup
Australian men are thumbing their noses at tradition and embracing
jewellery that is both non-essential and handsomely-designed. GRETEL
HUNNERUP reports.
Once upon a time jewellery was considered a product exclusively for women, in the same manner that aftershave is just for men. With every rule comes an exception and cufflinks, watches, wedding bands and the occasional neck chain were permissible purchases for men but that’s where it ended. Then something changed – around 2003, men of all persuasions began stepping-out with pendants, earrings and, heaven forbid, even bracelets, and these weren’t plain gold, silver or steel items but innovative, fashionable jewellery pieces featuring diamonds, coloured gemstones and non-traditional materials.
Jewellery had become manly and mainstream.
Since then, men’s jewellery has become one of the growing sectors in the business, generating profit where suppliers previously thought none existed.
“Men are now far savvier when it comes to their presentation, and jewellery is an extension of that,” says Helen Haggerty, Australian brand manager of international company Thomas Sabo, which has a sterling silver jewellery range targeted at men. “They’re looking beyond the shirt-and-tie and thinking of how they can put an outfit together in its entirety.”
Haggerty believes that changes in popular culture have helped to create today’s image-conscious male: “Over the last five or so years, men who are renowned for how they dress – sporting guys in particular – have really been putting boys on the map. They’re making men think, ‘How can I be a bit more like that?’ Iconic males have been used like this in the past, such as the movie stars of the 1920s and 1930s, but men can identify more closely with today’s more accessible characters.”
Branding, according to Haggerty, has also had a dramatic effect on the market for men’s jewellery by signalling to men what’s acceptable and fashionable, and by giving men an easy opportunity to align themselves with an image that reinforces how they feel about themselves.
“Brands have suddenly come along and given men some guidelines,” she explains. “Whereas before they weren’t too sure about what jewellery to wear and how to wear it, now they can choose a brand that defines who they are, and feel confident they’re not making a mistake.”
Mark McNeil, sales manager of jewellery distribution company Lindsay’s, thinks back to past Sydney JAA Jewellery Fairs to explain the rise of men’s jewellery: “We launched our first Morellato brand men’s range there in 2003 and people were saying, ‘Men’s jewellery, there’s not much happening there’.”
Nowadays, 30 per cent of the 150-page Morellato catalogue is dedicated to men’s jewellery, indicating that the men’s market is forming a significant portion of the market.
Most pieces in the men’s collection – the conspicuous pendants, bracelets, cufflinks, keyrings and rings that steer-away from the signet style – are based in stainless steel and feature 18-carat yellow gold with diamond, enamel, leather, ceramic and carbon fibre materials to enhance the pieces.
The big surprise for McNeill has been the collective willingness of men to embrace diamonds.
“Morellato started putting diamonds into the stainless steel designs in 2005 and those designs actually outsold the range featuring 18-carat gold,” he says. “The range featuring leather and diamonds has been our best seller for the last four years, proving that Australian guys are clearly comfortable with bling now.”
Morellato has made a clear point of creating definite pieces for men and women, and it seems to have paid off: “The men’s jewellery is significantly thicker,” says McNeill. “We do have some thinner unisex pieces but they don’t sell as well because the ladies look at them and say they’re too masculine, and the guys think they’re too feminine.”
At this month’s JAA International Jewellery Fair in Sydney, Lindsay’s will be launching men’s only brand Sector, which was created in Italy during the 1980s and marketed at adventure sports enthusiasts.
Based mainly in stainless steel with leather, rose gold and gemstone highlights, there will be ranges with sails designed on them, and ranges featuring material resembling abseil rope.
“The Sector catchphrase is ‘no limits’, but now the brand is moving more into reaching your own limits in any sense of the word, such as business and personal limits,” McNeill says. “There’s a range of crosses, a crucifix, and a range with black diamonds, for example.”
Trendy accessories label Police is making its jewellery more user-friendly for men, says brand manager Joanne Cork.
“While women are happy to sacrifice comfort for fashion, men are looking for something functional and they don’t want fussiness. Police has incorporated magnetic connections to make it easier for the wearer to put pieces on themselves.”
Police jewellery, launched in Australia during 2005, is also predominantly made from stainless steel, but is unisex and features plaited leather, strap-like arrangements, chunky pendants, thick chain bracelets and visible branding.
“The dog-tags have been really popular since we launched them, both the plain version and the one with stones,” says Cork. “These tags incorporate the engraved Police gothic-style ‘P’, like all the other Police jewellery pieces. In the past, we did a lot of cuffs, but Police is positioned as a fashion-forward brand so we’ve moved-away from them and now offer a thinner, corded leather wrist band. And crosses are always popular – the styles are always updated.”
The idea behind Police jewellery, says Cork, is not to provide men with expensive one-off pieces to wear for life, but rather to offer an array of affordable options to mix and match according to their wardrobe and whimsy.
This is something women have been doing for a long time and men are becoming more comfortable with, due to the “metrosexual” movement that encourages heterosexual men to care about fashion trends and self-grooming.
“The average retail price of Police jewellery is $150, so a man could potentially buy three to four pieces a year, updating in the same way he would update his clothes,” Cork concludes.
Thomas Sabo, with its sterling silver collections, has deliberately erased the distinction between jewellery for women and that of men.
“There are pieces that you’d look at and think of as exclusively male,” Haggerty says, “but you shouldn’t ever make that distinction as you’d be surprised what people pick.”
Unisex fashion rings, for example, have been a particular hit with the men.
“We’re getting quite a following of young guys spending between $300 and $500 on sterling silver rings with beautiful pavé-set detail, so this is a big step for them.”
Also popular with the men is Thomas Sabo’s Rebel at Heart range, a rock ‘n’ roll-inspired collection featuring tattoo-style winged heart pendants with pavé accents, leather cuffs featuring the fleur de lis, crowned skulls, guitars, Maltese crosses, and Richard the Lionheart motifs.
Even charm-style jewellery, which is still largely considered as something for women and children, is now being marketed to men.
RJ Scanlan & Co is offering retailers the Yukon range by German designer and manufacturer Teno, a collection of mainly steel and rubber jewellery that is customisable by adding bead-like ‘elements’ to bracelets or necklets.
“It’s a similar concept to Pandora but it’s targeted at men and utilises materials that appeal to males,” says general manager Stephen Brown. “The main target is the 20 to 30-year-old guy but we’re finding that it’s selling with teens who want to be older, right up to your 40-year-olds who still want to be 30,” he says.
Teno also offers a range of men’s stainless steel items with highlights of traditional and novel materials such as 18-carat gold, silver, diamonds, black diamonds, rubber, wood, animal horn, mother of pearl, ceramic and enamel.
In addition to it’s Dora range consisting of 200+ men’s wedding rings in the standard metals plus rose gold, platinum, palladium and titanium, RJ Scanlan & Co has just begun supplying a range of edgy men’s fashion rings called Soho, which are sterling silver based, with added refinements in other metals and black diamonds, and feature a range of bold, interesting finishes such as sandblasting, etching and oxidation.
“The look is very young and urban,” says Brown. “It’s the sort of style that will appeal to the 25-year-old who isn’t married and doesn’t want to wear the signet ring that dad has.”
Now that men are willing to wear jewellery beyond the basics, the challenge remains of how to attract their business.
An easy and effective way for jewellery retailers to appeal to men is to display men’s jewellery not as an extension of women’s jewellery, but as standalone pieces of equal worth. Placing men’s jewellery in its own space will help to create the concept that there’s nothing girly and second-rate about it. A range in its own right.
Another way to distinguish men’s jewellery from that of women is to use different terminology in the store. For example, the creators of US-based boutique jewellery label Elements 4 Men avoid labelling their silver, leather, suede and gemstone pieces as “jewellery” because of its feminine connotations.
“We prefer terms such as ‘neckware’, ‘wristware’ and ‘handware’, which are more masculine and primal in nature,” Antonia Wechsler told JQ magazine in 2004.
Australian retailers could easily incorporate the same words in their sales routine.
Haggerty from Thomas Sabo stresses the importance of placing men’s jewellery in an accessible spot, and uses the setup of a standard department store to explain her point:
“The male clothing section is always on the main level where you walk in, whereas the women’s section is generally up a few floors. This is because, while women are quite happy to go up a few escalators to find what they want, men need their experience to be pain-free.”
Haggerty suggests placing a clean, fuss-free display close to the store’s window or entry area.
“They’re far more comfortable when they know they can escape, otherwise it starts to get dangerous” she says.
Equally important is helping men to understand men’s jewellery a little better: “Retailers need to explain to a man how he would wear it, when he’d wear it, and how he would combine with other things,” Haggerty says. It’s about helping him to do this new, unfamiliar thing when he’s out of his comfort zone.”
In its 2008 campaign, Morellato effectively-managed to explain these things visually by showing a man wearing the same pieces of jewellery with five different outfits: formalwear; Saturday-night garb; office wear; casual clothes; and a wetsuit.
Bearing in mind that women are still the major buyers of jewellery, Stephen Brown has a final, and very obvious, point to make about selling men’s jewellery: “When a female is in your store, purchasing jewellery for herself,” he says, “take the opportunity to show male jewellery, too. You will sew the seed for future sales.”
Retailers who do this just might cut themselves a slice of a very profitable pie that just keeps getting bigger, as more men get in touch with their stylish side.
Posted September 01, 2009