More and more, jewelry manufacturing is occurring on a small scale – as few as one or two people designing and fabricating items at home, or in a small studio, and selling at fairs and festivals, at specialty shops or online.
The industry has noticed, and in response, the Manufacturing Jewelers & Suppliers of America Academy has created a new event, the MJSA Trade Show for Jewelry Making.
Taking place this Wednesday and Thursday, Sept. 27 to 28, on the show floor of the R.I. Convention Center in Providence, it is free for MSJA members, or $10 for non-members.
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The Trade Show for Jewelry Making will feature 90 booths, representing about 75 companies that manufacture equipment, gems, stones, beads, tools, unfinished jewelry and other components jewelry manufacturers use to make jewelry, said trade show manager Bruce Coltin.
Based on advance registrations, the MJSA expects at least 700 people to attend.
“It’s a very interesting market,” Coltin said. “There was a time when National Chain Group or Hallmark Sweet wouldn’t be concentrating on smaller jewelers. Now, it’s beneficial for the larger companies to see who those jewelry makers are.”
National Chain Group, based in Warwick, is the largest U.S. manufacturer of chain jewelry, said Vincent Ferrante, the company’s vice president of marketing, and employs 150 people in Rhode Island. It sells gold and silver chain directly to customers such as Wal-Mart.
“We’re attending because we want to be exposed to all segments of the market,” Ferrante said. And because “it’s a great opportunity to see customers on a more local level.”
Developing the small jewelry manufacturers as customers might be more critical for smaller vendors who supply jewelry manufacturers.
LDC Inc. will be exhibiting because it wants to expand its “confined manufacturing” business, which caters to small jewelers and designers, said Ed DeCristofaro, president of the Providence hoop-earring maker.
He said confined manufacturing – in which a designer develops a concept, and LDC makes the tooling, molds and models necessary to produce it – now generates about 35 percent of LDC’s business. “We get two to three phone calls per week” from small jewelry manufacturers who “have the idea but don’t know how to manufacture it,” DeCristofaro said. “This is, in my opinion, the future of what the jewelry industry will be in America.”
Coltin said the MJSA doesn’t know how many small jewelers exist – and that’s part of the reason the trade association for the jewelry-industry and its suppliers has created the new trade show. “A lot of what we knew to be volume jewelry manufacturing has disappeared,” and gone overseas, he said.
“This is a very new thing for us,” Coltin said. “We’re trying to get a handle on how many exist in New England and what they need to buy in order to grow their business.”
