That was my Vicenzaoro - Part 1: The mood among the exhibitors

Vicenzaoro from start to finish. From 5 to 9 September, I threw myself into the world of jewellery in Italy. Of course, there were many wonderful pieces of jewellery to admire, but also many exciting conversations and insights into the mood of the manufacturers and buyers. I shed light on these in part 1 of my column.

Left: Live in Vicenza in mostly sunny and warm late summer weather. © Insight Luxury

My "hunting ground" on the Vicenzaoro

While I'm still recovering from my flat feet, I'm pulling out my pen - or rather my keyboard - and getting to work on one of several follow-up reports to the September issue of Vicezaoro. Today I'm starting with a little mood barometer ...

When I'm at Vicenzaoro, I generally move back and forth between four halls. The exhibitor areas have names such as "Icon", "Look", "Glam Room" or "Contemporary" - in concrete terms, this means: exclusive and expensive brand jewellery (Hall 7) in one hall, mid-priced exhibitors who do not pursue their own branding as a brand (Hall 4) and design-oriented and lifestyle brands that tend to come from the entry-level price segment (Hall 1).

Hall 7, with the crème de la crème of jewellery, is somewhat reminiscent of Hall B1 at Inhorgenta, with the difference that you can find a few more expensive brands in Vicenza, some of which come from Italy. The atmosphere here on Friday and also on Saturday was rather quiet - you could definitely see a few customers at the stands, but it didn't look full.

Low expectations as the new normal?

Even towards the end of the fair, when I enquired again with many brands from Hall 7, this hardly seemed to have changed over the following days. Sunday and Monday were very well attended - mainly by Italian jewellers who used their days off during the working week to visit the fair. But here too, the real hustle and bustle took place somewhere else - in Hall 1, where the lifestyle brands are located. A buyer described the atmosphere there to me as being like a buzzing beehive. The exhibitors I spoke to in Hall 1 were also very pleased with themselves.

Hall 4, where the bread-and-butter goods from the quality sector can be found and where most of the jewellery retailers are located with more than 700 stand numbers, was probably also very busy, although this is a little difficult to track due to the tight stand structure. Random sample from the Binder Group, which was represented in Hall 4 with the acredo brand: There were definitely some new orders written.

So is glamorous luxury now in a bad way? The mood on the stands was not bad, but rather pragmatic. Many seem to have become accustomed to the new normal of buyers preferring to keep their money in their own wallets at the moment due to economic uncertainties - a trend that can be observed internationally. The September edition is traditionally somewhat less well attended than the January edition: of course, for most manufacturers the presentation of new products in the first quarter is already over and there is often very little new. This is why expectations are not as high for this date. The positive thing is that the manufacturers are still in Vicenza in September and don't skip the event - representation is important!

The effort is actually rewarded with new customers, many of whom were not even on the radar: some exhibitors received visits and new orders from countries such as Albania or Romania, where the interest in equipping themselves with beautiful jewellery is likely to be relatively high. Perhaps in the end it's also down to the attitude with which you do business. As always, we would have liked to have seen more Germans at Vicenzaoro, but realistically, for many jewellers the networking and shopping doesn't start again until February with Inhorgenta.

A little shout-out from me goes to my colleagues at Goldschmiedezeitung, who organised the "German Get-Together" on Saturday - the small cocktail event directly after the trade fair was well attended and certainly has the potential to bring many people together in a productive environment.