AN INTERVIEW WITH PRINCESON JOSE

Chennaibest.com speaks to Princeson Jose, Director, Prince Jewellery, about the current trend in the jewellery market. A third generation jeweller, Princeson himself is a designer. He understands the value of good designs and sets great store by practical designs.

Is branded jewellery eating into the share of traditional jewellery?

The only traditional jewellery bought now-a-days is wedding jewellery. Today's youngsters are going in for trendy casual jewellery. We are taking students from the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) for designing our jewellery. We have got a good response from the US and UK market. We were the pioneers in bringing branded jewellery to this market. Tanishq initially had its outlet in our showroom, and Gili is doing best in Prince outlets. Even now people prefer to buy branded jewellery from traditional jewellery shops.

There is some change in that, now-a-days youngsters have a lot of money. A lot of college going kids takeup part-time jobs and have a lot of disposable income. They do not mind spending money for anniversary or birthday gifts. We have an affordable diamond jewellery collection. There are some designs for which we use one or two stones, and they are quite affordable. Previously they used to buy a lot of chunky jewellery, which used to be considered an investment. But now people split it into four or five pieces of jewellery to be worn to suit every occassion.

We keep only 22-carat, ready to export jewellery. All our jewellery are cadmium soldered and we make only Hallmark quality products. We are basically exporters. We have this outlet since for the local market, it makes sense to have a display of this kind. We do a lot of exhibitions abroad.

Where would you position Prince, when it comes to wearable Vs locker jewellery?

We make practical wearable jewellery. We get clientele from all sets of people. Our designs are entirely different and new.

It is slowly picking up. It is mainly corporate gifts like tie pins, kurta buttons, cuff links, gold pens etc. It is on the rise with the Automobile industry and the IT industry picking up in Chennai.

Diamond is becoming increasingly affordable. Our 'Diamond Vivaha Collection' has designs from Rs 40,000 onwards. People want jewellery for different occassions apart from the marriage function. Apart fromt he occassion of marriage, they are now buying casual office wear or party wear kind of jewellery.

Which season in the year has sales peaking in Chennai?

April to June...July is an off-season. During diwali and from December to January.

Around 70% is marriage buy.

The fast moving plain gold jewellery alone is consumed to the tune of 855 tonnes per annum. And out of this the South alone account sfor 45% consumption.

It basically depends on the design. Earlier on jewellers from India used to send only traditional designs for NRIs in the US. Once we started our exhibitions, we got a good response from the market. Now the market has become more design driven

There is no margin on the gold price. It is not possible to offer differential rates from what is declared officially. The margins are in the design. We pride ourselves on the innovative designs that we offer. We do not repeat our designs. Every season, we come out with different designs. We hire students from the NIFT on a regular basis and train them. That way our designs remain fresh. Sangeeta Dewan, who has won the International Gold Virtuosi Award 2000, is one of our trainees, she was also the finalist at the De Beers, 'Millennium Diamond Design competetion'.

This industry is growing at a rate of 5% every year.

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