The fluctuating price of gold is a solid reason why jeweller Lucy Folk would choose not to have price tags planted beside the enticing chains and rings in her Sydney and Melbourne stores.
According to ABC Bullion general manager Jordan Eliseo, the price of gold has “accelerated noticeably in the past three years, essentially doubling in that time-frame alone” before pulling back in the past four months.
That would have meant a lot of price-tag shuffling for Folk.
“Can you imagine?” says Folk. “But that’s not why I don’t have them. It’s for aesthetic reasons. How do you make a price tag look beautiful? Don’t get me started on barcodes.”
Rings engraved with initials and cuffs inspired by anchovies signal Folk’s refined whimsy, but she means business when adapting to the volatility of gold prices.
“We have had to examine our design to maximise how you do more with less,” Folk says. “Our tennis bracelets, for instance, are quite chunky in their use of gold compared to other brands. How can we do things differently without compromising what our customers love?”
With most of Folk’s jewellery made to order (that tennis bracelet costs $15,000), there’s the advantage of having close communication with customers.
“Once a piece is commissioned, and we have ordered the gold, the price is locked in, but in the lead-up, if there is significant change, people are understanding. They don’t live in a vacuum. They know what’s happening with gold.”
“We have seen an increase in our bespoke pieces for clients,” Folk says. “The flipside of this conversation is that people today understand the value of jewellery.”
The Sydney-based co-founder of Erede, Jeramie Hotz, also occupies an area of the fine jewellery market where three zeroes or more at the end of a price tag doesn’t make customers blink. Angelina Jolie, Olivia Munn and Zoe Saldaña have been spotted wearing pieces from the business Hotz founded with New York-based Talia Shuvalov.
Hotz has instituted four price rises for Erede’s contemporary designs offering an update on art deco elegance since being launched in 2023.
“Larger jewellery companies can buy gold and stockpile it – we don’t have that luxury,” says Hotz.
To keep customers engaged with the brand, Erede introduced pieces utilising sterling silver, with angular hinged bracelets reminiscent of streamlined stirrups costing $1225 along with $650 aluminum jewellery boxes.
“You want people to be able to buy into the journey, and they have been a success, but it is the bespoke end of the market that is really taking off,” Hotz says. “Price is a part of any conversation, but it becomes about something more in the process.”
Eliseo at ABC Bullion says that few people will hold back on purchases to see if the price of gold falls further.
“Over the medium to long term, it is far more likely that both gold and silver, with their unique supply and demand profiles, will continue to rise,” he says.
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