Jewellers going back to traditional handcrafted ornaments to fetch premiums

Heavy machinery costs, changing mindset of consumers responsible for the shift, say experts

Machines replaced human hands in the manufacturing of gold jewellery a few decades back. The need, back then, was to cut costs, and cater to the rising popularity of machine designs in chains, earrings and bangles. Handcrafted designs were blended with machine-made ones. And soon, machine-made ornaments expanded their share in the overall jewellery sales to 25-30 per cent, from less than 5 per cent.

However, after revolutionising the jewellery industry through machine-made designs, jewellers are going back to their roots of traditional handcrafted manufacturing of gold and diamond ornaments to appease customers for premiums.

This move can be seen