Beyond Updated Luxury and Jewelry trends

MAY 8
It's been a while since we sent that last email to you. Hope you're doing well and the positivity is still intact. This email comes with some new and enhanced features that we have introduced at Learnathon. Starting today, we will be sending you weekly newsletters based on what has happened in the past week, trying to make sense of it and analysing how it will affect the luxury and the jewelry industry.

Let's get to it directly:

JCK Vegas gets canned and Baselworld loses sheen

The biggest of the jewelry shows have decided to cancel the event amid Covid-19 crisis. World over exhibitions are getting cancelled, or postponed. While JCK gets cancelled for the year, Baselworld's top exhibitors, namely, Rolex, Chanel, Chopard, Patek Phillipe and Tudor have opted out of Baselworld 2021. 

What is unique about these two separate events? Well, they are very different reasons. While the US has been the biggest victim of the Coronavirus pandemic so far, it is very obvious that the Vegas show had to be cancelled and seems like a unanimous decision keeping in mind what is beneficial to all stakeholders. The cancellation will give the jewelry businesses some much needed time to recuperate, figure out next year's strategy and make an attempt to come back strongly.

However, the story of Baselworld is different. Apparently, Baselworld 2020 was postponed to January 2021 without consulting the participants, which also gave a rise to refund friction between the organisers and the exhibitors. What is pertinent to note that the 5 iconic brands have decided to create a new luxury and watch event to be held in April 2021. 

Now, Baselworld is an iconic European event that gives a platform for grand product reveals for even the smaller luxury, jewelry and watch brands and independent designers. They are considered to be the protectors of the Swiss tradition. With the exit of these five larger brands, and the future of Baselworld bleak, it is a matter of concern for the European leadership to work to protect the industry in trying times like these. 

But, with each threat is an opportunity waiting to be exploited.

Opportunity for smaller aspiring brands
 in this level playing field

Every business is pulling back, retracting, cutting costs, stopping advertisements, cutting salaries and so on. Irrespective of the size of the business. Now put India's Entrepreneurial story in the centre of this pandemic. Unlike many countries, most small and medium businesses in India are bootstrapped (No funding or dilution of ownership). Indian businesses are known for their Jugaad. Gosh, even the Havard professors agree on this. Which is exactly what is needed during and post Covid. 

This pandemic has created and will continue to create misery in a lot of lives. But it has also created a level playing field among large and small luxury businesses. The terms of working are the same, your team meetings are online, connecting with customers is online, your design showcasing has shifted online. No capital dumping is possible by large ventures to remove smaller brands out of the scene. And these small and medium aspiring brands have left no stone unturned by expediting the process of moving online, doing Instagram live, enhancing their websites, promoting and pitching themselves in. Some of them are even showing their collections via Zoom, Teams, etc. and engaging with their customers just as they would in their stores.

For once in this generation's lifetime, a level playing field is visible.

An overdose can make you dull

These days there is an overdose of everything. Overdose of Netflix, screentime, food, chats, mess and work piles. What else is an overdose? Webinars!! Everybody is either organising them or attending them. I must admit, most of these so-called experts on the webinars are shooting for the stars. They, themselves, don't know till when is this pandemic going to last. They wouldn't even know when markets will recover, because even economists don't, hence almost all webinars end with diplomatic answers and unanswered questions. 

At JK and Learnathon, we learnt from this and changed the structure of our Virtual Classroom Webinars. We've always loved transparency. We narrowed the topics of each webinar to be focussed and ensured that every question is answered. Not just that, we made sure the attendees can directly interact with the panelists. And this was well appreciated by our students and alumni. 

But I am not writing this to tell you about what we did. I am writing this to ask you about what you are going to do? Most of you have attended different webinars, learnt a couple of things. But did you act upon those learnings? Or did you let the lack of ambition get the better of you? I am not saying you need to think about your business or profession. It could be about self development, it could be appreciating the on-field corona warriors, it could be spending quality time with your family and contributing your time at home and it could be about business. But all this should come out, not just in thoughts but also in action. 

I guess that was enough motivation for the week. We'll be in touch with more news, effects and analysis in the next one. Stay tuned!