Gold Is A Girl'S Best Friend

In New York, the rule is wear ethnic jewellery. (The only thing more muggable than gold in the naked city is lace-up Doc Martens.) In New Delhi, says with-it teenager Chaya Singh, "gold is for bureaucrat's wives and ammas". She and her friends favour such exotica as neon Eiffel Tower earrings and lots of chunky silver -- "but not too much, otherwise you'll look like Livleen Singh or Ila Arun." Even Ralph Lauren bucked the usual string of pearls and gold filigree chain this year in favour of crystal soup-plate medallions and bronze-and-feather accessories.

Unfortunately, Lauren and Co are way out of step with the times. The rest of the world argues about whether 22 carat is better than 18 carat, but one thing is sure -- the metal of kings hasn't lost its lustre. Says Beatriz Biagi, jewellery designer and consultant for the World Gold Council (WGC), "Gold can never go out of style as long as there are special occasions in people's lives. It has a sentimental value, it is for a lifetime." Biagi is here currently in connection with the Swarnanjali Awards, a gold jewellery design contest held under the auspices of the World Gold Council.

 

The WGC estimates that 1995 was a record year for gold demand, with the global total rising by eight per cent across the board. Chairman Harry M Conger notes, however: "Sustaining this level of demand for physical gold in the years to come will be a critical factor."

That's where experts like Biagi come in. The 30-year-old Milan-based designer has proved her mettle after just five years in the profession. She's worked with Germany's Cantelli, Greece's Atena Gold and Italy's GIBI and now runs her own jewellery atelier in between acting as consultant for jewellery manufacturers in Europe, America and the Middle East apart from the WGC. This is her eighth rendezvous with India -- Biagi was first here in 1993, when she put together the country's first Trend Book for the WGC.

This time, it's the Swarnanjali Awards that have prompted the return of the honorary native.

Biagi will spend the next few months sifting through over 2,500 jewellery designs along with

Subhash Bhola of Bholasons Jewellers, S R Shroda of the Jewellery Product Development Centre and J N Chandra of P C Chandra and Sons.

Biagi has high expectations from the contest: "People sometimes don't like wearing gold because the designs are too heavy, too tired, old fashioned. In India, there are occasions when everybody will wear that kind of jewellery, but there should be more experimentation. Indians are very open to novelty." The winners will be announced on December 19; the best design concepts will be crafted by Tribhuvandas Bhimji Zaveri in Bombay and modelled at a live fashion show next year.

They could even find their way into the next set of Trend Books, the WGC's equivalent of the advertising industry's Black Book. Divided into five global sectors -- Western, Chinese, Arabic, Indian and Turkish -- the Trend Books are an essential part of the WGC's agenda. For example, the 1995-96 European Trend Book led to the creation of 261 new gold jewellery collections, which translates into some 20,000 new designs.

So far, Biagi has been project leader for two Trend Books on India, one on Turkey and one on Mexico. "Mexico was easier because I was born there," she says. "I had to do a lot of research on India. The more you get to know about the culture, the better the designs are. It requires a lot of reading, updating with jewellers, being curious to know the people. For the next one on Turkey, I think I will try to learn a little bit of Turkish." Language acquisition is an occupational hazard --Biagi is already fluent in English, Italian, Spanish and German, and can feel her way around in modern Greek.

Design contests and Trend Books are just the tip of the iceberg. The most memorable promo in WGC's attempts to gild the globe was held during the Dubai Shopping Festival. The Dubai: City of Gold scheme was funded by $ 1.1 million from the gold trade and included a lucky draw with one kilo of gold as the jackpot every day.

1995 was also the year the Swiss woke up to the realisation that there was a potential gold bar at the bottom of their bowl of breakfast cereal. It wasn't them going cuckoo, but a tie-up with Nestle to promote UBS's Kinebar 2000, a gold bar with a guaranteed buy-back until the year 2000.

The Council came up against a sociological problem in Hong Kong -- the declining popularity of chuk yam (pure gold) wedding jewellery. Chuk yam held limited appeal for anyone without unlimited coffers -- it could not be worn after the ceremony. WGC persuaded a leading partner to introduce multi-purpose gold jewellery -- pieces that could be dismantled to become separate chokers, bracelets and brooches.

The Council's expertise has also been sought on issues such as how to sell more Buddha images in Thailand, use PCs to teach German bank employees about bullion, and hype gold sales in Indonesia with a travelling exhibition, the Gold Mission. In fact, the only area where the WGC doesn't seem to have a presence is on the Gold Coast.

But India, it seems, has a glittering future ahead. Absently twiddling with her three-part ring, Biagi says,"In this country, people used to go to their family goldsmith. But the market is now diversifying. There is room for big showrooms and small workshops -- India has about two million workshops! This country can accommodate both kinds."

Biagi's world, too, can accommodate many sorts of people, if they follow one simple rule: they can have any kind of jewellery you want, so long as it's gold.BODY>