Telling the tale of your jewelry through packaging and display

By Rebecca Oster Bach

Like most jewelry designers, Maeve Gillies of New York City–based MaeVona has a story to tell through her jewelry. It’s a story that encapsulates Scotland’s history and mythology, its lochs and wildflowers, its towns and castles. And like most jewelers, Gillies crafts each piece to represent the story that inspires her, revealing the unique qualities that enhance her work and increase customer interest.

For one of Gillies’s most popular rings, Eriskay—part of her Scottish Islands collection—Gillies trains retail sales staff about the story of the ring. On her website she includes photographs of the island along with a personal story about how the location inspired the piece and collection. And, as with all her pieces, she carries the story through to the end packaging: a white wooden box, bordered by her signature navy blue, gets packaged inside a matching box that, when opened, reveals an historic map of Scotland from the 1700s, which lines the box. The outer box is then secured with a navy ribbon containing her logo, an intertwined Celtic M and V.

“Our jewelry box and matching display is very much our corporate image,” she explains, “and because we have such a unique Celtic story and packaging, we are very identifiable.

“These details resonate so much,” she adds, “that we’ve had customers who will visit the island their ring is named after, which goes to show how important the story is to the customer.”

Stories are important, and packaging and display can become essential to en-hancing that story. Whether you work directly with consumers or sell through a retailer, such details as 18th century Scottish maps inside a box make a difference—as Gillies says, “Jewelry is more than the metal and stones… It’s important to pay attention to all those details to let the consumer know the value of what they are purchasing.”

On the following pages, several designers describe how they are using such enhancements to tell their individual tales, and to sell their stories along with their jewelry.

Judging a Book by its Cover: Packaging with a Purpose

Every designer has different needs to fill and goals in mind with how they package their pieces, a point that Etienne Perret of Camden, Maine, discusses in connection with developing packaging for his ceramic rings. Perret packages the jewelry in square, black suede pouches imprinted with his logo and places those pouches inside a simple, black cardboard box, believing it makes for a good customer experience. “If I can supply an experience where the recipient goes through the process of opening the box, then opening the pouch, it’s like opening a present and tells the story better,” Perret explains.

Perret also includes a red optical cloth. “The red cloth is great for the ceramic jewelry—the black ceramic with its ultra-high polish tends to show fingerprints, and the cloth is great for removing those,” he explains. “It serves a purpose, and I prefer to include that [functional] aspect [into] my packaging if at all possible.” He also notes that “it’s important to meet style for style. If I were going to create one of my ceramic pieces with diamonds and gold, I’d put it in a more expensive box. But for my ceramic rings under $500, I prefer not to go over the top on the box. The rings wouldn’t look right in a fancy, heavy wooden box.”

Packaging also can reflect how well you know your target customer. Designer Vicente Agor of San Francisco, for example, finds the inspiration for his work in travel and the spirit of adventure, with collections such as Antarctica, Moroccan Garden, and the Hawaii-inspired Volcánico. He adds that while his jewelry emphasizes outer beauty, it is also about recognizing a person’s inner beauty. So Agor designs packaging with this, and his target customer, in mind.

“If we are all about travel and adventure, we understand our customer doesn’t want those stiff, heavy boxes, but [would] love something they can easily slip into their carry-on,” Agor explains. So he places his jewelry in a travel folder constructed of a brown silk outer fabric with a vivid fuchsia silk inside. “When you open up the silk folder, the bright fuchsia is stunning, just like the inside of a person: It’s what makes them special,” he says, harkening back to the importance of emphasizing a person’s inner qualities. “It’s these little details that really create the experience in retail.”

Make Customers Turn the Page: Display Your Story

Personalized packaging is a great way to get your story across to customers who purchase your jewelry, but how do you relay that same message to customers just browsing through a retail showcase? Creative displays are a powerful way to grab the attention of customers. They should express the unique message behind a designer’s work and highlight the themes of a particular collection. Displays can be sleek and simple or include unique materials that accent the jewelry. Above all, they should be engaging, and make the customer step closer to examine the jewelry and see the details that make a designer’s story more apparent.

Designer Rachel Clinnick of San Francisco–based Thalia Jewelry incorporates materials in her display that complement the theme of her work. Inspired by a childhood spent excavating fossils and treasure hunting with her parents, Clinnick’s work has an Old World aesthetic with influences of Byzantine and Etruscan arts and culture. “I really want to create pieces that feel like treasures that can be passed down, and that is how we display as well,” explains Clinnick, who creates in-store displays for her retail clients. “Displays not only convey our image and the beauty of the piece, but the story behind it.” In fact, Clinnick has found that her displays are so important to her message that she seeks out retailers who feel comfortable using them.

Because her various jewelry lines all reflect the same theme, Clinnick mixes and matches her collections in the same display. The various “props” also change from one display to the next, but all convey that feel of treasures found.

“I’ll stack vintage, beautiful, gold-embossed leather books, maybe set some earrings on top with a necklace cascading down, or include old glass bottles with a necklace wrapped around the neck,” Clinnick says. “Everything is interchangeable, stackable, mixable, and we show it in the case like that as well, so that [customers] see they are wearable as a set.”

Whereas Clinnick finds success in using an assortment of materials that differ from case to case, designer Todd Reed of Boulder, Colorado, likes a more consistent look. From the handcrafted window displays of his studio to his retail showcases, Reed presents the bright golds, dark silvers, and colored diamonds of his collections on neutral taupe displays, and incorporates square edges with a very structured, modern, and masculine feel to set off the lines and colors of the jewelry.

Inspired by nature, Reed incorporates natural elements into his displays to contrast with his modern aesthetic: rock formations, sand, or aspen trees that run the height of the display with necklaces hanging from the notches of the tree or displayed amid succulents poking out from underneath rock.

“The displays make people get it,” explains Liz Kantner, the studio’s marketing manager. “It makes the jewelry stand out, but also looks really natural. It makes the customer remember that these stones and metals came from the earth.” Such settings are so valuable that Reed will send pictures of the personalized retail displays used by some of their stores to all their retailers—a nice way not only to recognize the stores who are using the displays, but also to show other stores how useful the displays can be.

Some designers, such as Diana Widman of Chicago-based Diana Widman Design, choose to create displays that mirror a particular collection. For Widman’s Linen Collection, she manipulates sheets of metal through heating, bending, hammering, and folding so that the end results are beautiful metal jewelry with the texture of soft, rumpled fabric. To play off the idea of fabric, Widman upholsters her displays with wool, silk, and linen in her company colors of cappuccino, espresso, and cream. “It seems to work very well with the jewelry, and I do see a great response to it,” she says.

Widman also places pieces of folded metal in the case to give people something to touch and the opportunity to ask questions about her work. “You have to entertain sometimes, too. People know there’s something special going on [with the jewelry], but sometimes they can’t identify what it is right away,” Widman says. “I think displays help a lot—to tell the story without words and create a connection. When a display works, it’s a complete package: It backs up your body of work with a kind of physical evidence.”

Jennifer Dawes of Dawes Design in Santa Rosa, California, is known for creating sustainable, nature-inspired jewelry—and her displays, simple and consistent in design, reflect that. Her displays, all of which feature her green grass logo, use a backdrop of frosted acrylic to create a glowing light behind her jewelry. She then adds channels of green grass throughout the display. Dawes makes her own ring and earring displays with angled Plexiglas plates so that a piece has nothing distracting behind it.

“My displays are a cohesive story that I think people understand. They see the grass, and the natural elements of my jewelry, and that’s indicative of what I’m trying to say about the actual work—it’s organic, green, clean, it’s about the purity of where I’m coming from in terms of design and the beliefs behind my brand: making things in a responsible, ethical way,” says Dawes.

Some designers will also create one-of-a-kind packaging to go with their displays. For instance, for her custom orders, Clinnick sometimes presents her wedding rings in a glass, vintage jewelry box, or small porcelain box, which fit with her theme of Old World elegance and ornate design. Dawes—in line with her focus on sustainability—creates boxes made of bamboo grown on her property. While she is unable to provide these handmade boxes to all of her retail stores for logistical reasons, the packaging serves a purpose and sends a strong message about what is important about her jewelry.

It’s the Little Things: Working with Retailers

Getting your message across is also about creating an open dialogue with your retailers, discussing which of your personalized materials they can use, and what materials you need to provide. “I’ve worked with award-winning stores most of my career, and they have a real idea of what they want the presentation to be like,” explains Perret, who prefers to leave the in-store presentation to the retailer. “I like to visit the store and work with them to decide what will work best for everyone.”

Belle Brooke Barer of Belle Brooke Designs in Taos, New Mexico, makes sure to identify the needs of the stores before sending materials. When possible, Barer uses her own packaging materials: a silver, metal box with an “industrial kind of feel that really goes with my jewelry,” as the metal and silver color complement the metal she uses to create her pieces. She adds her logo and her message to the lid—“Hand-crafted Art to Wear”—to emphasize her brand. “I want people to realize the message behind my work: that my jewelry is hand-fabricated and one-of a kind,” says Barer.

But in addition to her metal boxes, Barer also creates custom ‘care and cleaning cards’ and ‘artist cards’ for use with a retailer’s packaging, including her photo, a short biography, and an artistic statement that explains the story behind her work. “Some stores want all of my materials, some don’t want any, and some want just the cards to use with their packaging,” explains Barer. “I don’t force anyone to use my branding, so I send them whatever they think will work best.” These personalized touches, even when included with a retailer’s packaging, help the customer remember what is special about a designer’s jewelry.

There are numerous ways to add such personal touches—or, as Clinnick puts it, to “incorporate little things to pull off your vibe.” Designer Alexandra Hart in San Diego provides a nameplate with her logo for retailers to display with her work. “It’s very important to have something that has your name, look, and brand, and is also neutral enough that retailers can display it.” She also includes tags that she ties to her pieces, using her name, logo, and signature colors of pale blue and dusty brown to create brand recognition. However, she does not include her contact information on the tags so as not to be compete with the retailer.

Agor, like Barer, sends a small, personalized card to be included with the store’s packaging. The card features photos of his jewelry and his logo, and it allows him to “describe the collections in a big sense, and provide the inspiration behind them,” he says.

In other words, it allows him to tell his story, which can then be told again and again, in many different ways.

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Tips: Help Retailers Learn What’s Important to You

Sharing Your Story

Much of a designer’s success in a retail store depends on the sales staff’s ability to convey your story. Here are a few tips to help your retailers learn what’s important about you.

Start a Discussion. Rachel Clinnick of Thalia Jewelry in San Francisco values dialogue and forming strong relationships with her retailers above all else. “I have them call me, or often I will go into my retail stores, step behind the counter and set up a case myself. It creates a discussion and enables me to interact with the retailers.”

Use Social Media. Jennifer Dawes of Dawes Design in Santa Rosa, California, has retailers ‘like’ her Facebook page. “It helps them stay current on what’s happening with my brand and is an easy way to keep everybody in the loop.”

Send Videos. While Diana Widman of Widman Design in Chicago believes the best choice is to visit the store herself, she also sends them a video. “It’s an example of me working at the bench, showing the materials I use and the story of where I’m coming from.”

Keep Them Current. Barbara Heinrich of Barbara Heinrich Studio in Pittsford, New York, makes sure her retailers have her most up-to-date information. “When we introduce retailers to a new line, we send them gallery letters, brochures, we provide them with the right vocabulary, visuals, and tell them what inspired it so they can sell that story to the customer.”

Use Technology. If she can’t make it to a store, Maeve Gillies of MaeVona in New York City conducts retailer sales training via Skype along with walking staff through her website, another important learning tool that tells the story behind each individual piece of jewelry. “Our mobile website allows retailers easy access to all the stories behind our work. That’s very important because our story doesn’t reach the consumer unless the retailer is excited and knowledgeable.”

Don’t Make Them Guess. When sending display materials, Gillies says, it’s always wise to include a picture of how the finished display should look: “It’s up to us as manufacturers to supply the visuals for the displays so that retailers can unpack the boxes and see exactly what it’s meant to look like.”

Provide Press Materials. Alexandra Hart of San Diego provides magazine articles about her work, promotional materials, interviews, a look book, and lots of high-resolution images for their marketing. “It’s important for the designer to include as much material as the retailer can use to build the story and build the collection.”