I think you will find that most of the silver jewelry such as you
have describe has been offshored as well, with the main buyers in
this country being adolescents, young adults, and the bottom 99%
of income earners in general. But you'll see nothing original even
if the latest 'bling' is being trumpeted as such on television
The better part of the post quoted above couldn’t be more
misinformed. First, one-off art jewellery isn’t “offshored” it is
fabricated in small to not so small studios by designer
gold/metalsmiths working in whatever their materials of choice for a
given piece dictate, be they precious metals or not or pieces using
no metal and found objects (from Bob Ebendorf to JAR for instance…[
For more on the high end art jeweler JAR here is an article from
Forbes that supports the notion of art jewellery being “off-shored”
but in a more realistic and appropriate context
The Cult Of JAR).
Arts and crafts “movement” in metals exists in a very wide, vast
range of designer artists making all kinds of work and displaying it
/marketing it in all kinds of venues from juried shows to buyers
markets, some doing a circuit of artisan oriented shows to arts and
craft ‘fairs’ (beaders excluded) that cater to a market that has
income to spend to either stock their stores if reselling one-off
pieces, to collecting the work of favourite “brands” like the work of
Marianne Hunter, Elisabeth Gaultieri/Zaffiro, Andy Cooperman,
Abrasha, Patsy Croft, etc.
As for the “main buyers” in I presume the USA, is where the poster
lives, he couldn’t be more wrong: designer jewelers I know rarely
get adolescents in their studios or calling to have commissioned
pieces made When a designer maker gets 3500 bucks US for a pair of
relatively small, sometimes all silver enamelled earrings I hardly
think they consider their market of young adults and other than the
super wealthy the bottom 99%.In fact that statistic is just plain
wrong:Silver or mixed metal arts and crafts movement continuum
jewellery is exactly what is sought by those young adults that have
realised life beyond a mall.
And for the record, adolescents, teens and young adults are the
largest groups of on-line buyers and the single largest group with
the most disposable income having no rents to pay, living at home, no
insurables to pay for, and making their own "spending money"the
under 21 set still considered dependants on their parents tax
surrenders. the next age group that may have some practical life
bills also spends more in e-commerce and in brick and mortar stores
than other groups for “adornment”…as a mass, not singling out the
super wealthy few.
The mass market garbage that is cranked out in China, from stones cut
in India and secondarily in China and sold on home shopping networks
isn’t arts and crafts inspired, one off, nor being marketed to a
young age group. More correctly to the 40-65 year old age group with
some income to spend, some credit, and certainly not the bottom 99%.
Marketing aside, it isn’t the silver jewelery the poster is referring
to: not one-off, not a thing to do with arts and crafts inspired
pieces and by its nature couldn’t be sent offshore for reasons beyond
simply it misses the point of artisan made jewelry, but would not be
cost effective and even if the work were a small contract cast
production run, we’re talking about a nominal charge for the contract
work (for instance a ring cast by Hoover and Strong of a moderate
weight may cost the designer 6-15 dollars for a single piece, and
that would be mailed to and from the State of Virginia!).
I hope the poster asking the question will recognise the difference
in speaking to the form that the different perspectives presented in
this forum represent. In my opinion the person that posted the
comment quoted above has no idea what you were talking about relative
to the arts and crafts movement as it is today, nor what it has
evolved intbut it should be clear that I completely disagree with
that post. rer