Costume jewellery, the £130 billion global industry

When our company first started trading in the mid-1960s, Britain, and especially Birmingham, had a booming jewellery manufacturing industry. The Hockley jewellery quarter, now primarily a museum destination, led the world in high end and high volume jewellery production.

Last year saw the demise of one of the last remaining high volume costume jewellery manufacturers in the British Isles, Andersen’s of Limerick. It is an undisputable fact that a major share of the world’s fashion jewellery production is nowadays centred on the Asia Pacific and South East Asia regions. Countries such as China, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand and Vietnam now hold sway.

The value of the market in international terms is mind-boggling. India alone has a £10 billion organised and unorganised market for precious, semi-precious and artificial jewellery. As this represents just an 8% global share, we are looking at a total world market of something like £130 billion, give or take a billion or two. If the UK had held on to its historical industry, the tax revenues generated today would comfortably pay for a very large number of schools and hospitals.

The industry is not without its controversies. Just as in the production of cheap clothing in countries like Bangladesh, employers are castigated for exploiting cheap labour and using potentially harmful toxic materials in finished products. A recent batch of products from China, for example, were found to contain unsafe levels of cadmium, a sobering thought next time you are buying presents for your teenage daughter.

As with many industries, the UK and other European countries still lead the world in fashion jewellery design and brand awareness. Paris is one of the best places for designers and you can find many workshops and studios in Montmartre and Marais. There is no doubt that Europe possesses the top design skills. It also represents, along with the USA, the top market for volume consumption, with specialist retail outlets on every high street and an insatiable demand for the cheapest possible bling.

Jewellery is almost unique as a manufacturing industry in that it employs a disproportionate number of finishing processes in its production. A typical costume jewellery production facility will involve precious metal and other compound metal electroplating, pre-treatments, ultrasonic cleaning, vibratory barrelling and centrifugal polishing, heat treatments, effluent water treatment and much more.

These are all skills that the UK and Europe has in abundance. So we have changed from being producers of the final products to being manufacturers of the machinery that makes the final products. Our expertise is also in demand to train our Asian counterparts in the skills needed to produce products that have high quality finishes, are robust in construction and safe for the consumer.

Our company regularly makes sales to the Asia Pacific region, including items such as process plants, mass finishing machinery, cleaning systems and water treatment plants. It is turning into one of our most vibrant export markets.

Later this year, the Singapore Surface Finishing Association is hosting Surfin 2014, a conference and exhibition for the surface finishing industry in the entire Asia Pacific region. With the historical ties that Singapore has to the UK, it would be beneficial if some of our companies would participate in this important event for the industry. Asia is the new frontier, and we ignore it at our peril.