Jewellery’s role as an investment

Poonam Soni, a luxury jewellery designer in Mumbai, talks about the trends in India’s jewellery market.

At the top end of the jewellery market in India, is gold still the most popular precious metal or are others metals growing in popularity?

Among the section of people who travel a lot and who are exposed to the western culture and designer brands, they are definitely looking for options. Those are the classes who have a lot of money at their disposal and they look for variety, so when they have satiated themselves with gold, then they look to buying other metals like platinum. They even experiment with high-end jewellery in silver. Silver jewellery is supposed to be precious globally but in India it is not counted as precious.

Do you notice greater demand during the festive season?

Poonam Soni is a very high-end exclusive brand which works by appointment. The customer who wants to invest doesn’t come to us. But at the same time, even a customer who splurges on high-end jewellery sometimes goes into a mode of investment. In other words, they will not buy 100 per cent jewellery which is fashion jewellery or high-end custom design jewellery. They want to balance their wardrobe with investment jewellery. It’s just a social culture that we are born with in India.

Can luxury jewellery brands be good investments?

Every brand, whether luxury or not, has two or three different kinds of collection. You have a collection which is luxury and bespoke, which people want to splurge on because it makes them feel good that they are wearing a brand. But when they say ‘I want to spend ten lakhs [one million rupees] but I want it to be cashable’, then we guide them to jewellery which has return value, which has the weight of gold, precious stones, which is less labour- intensive.

Who are your clients and what are the prices for your bespoke jewellery?

I have politicians’ wives, film stars, the normal business people, the upper middle class. Bespoke jewellery would start at about five lakhs minimum and goes up to anything. If you want 10-carat solitaires, exclusive, which are rare, fancy diamonds, I cannot put a cap on it.

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