These Jewels Fit for Royalty Cost Only the Price of a Few Dinners Out
These Jewels Fit for Royalty Only Cost the Price of a Few Dinners Out
(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Cornelia Moore, a 31-year-old tech consultant, was always infatuated with antique jewelry but never thought she’d be able to wear expensive pieces herself. So in February, when her friend Sharon Novak introduced Beekman New York, a jewelry rental service, she eagerly volunteered to be a guinea pig.
For a cocktail party on the Upper East Side, a company stylist helped Moore find three baubles—an aquamarine, diamond, and platinum cocktail ring; a moonstone and sapphire necklace; and baroque pearl and diamond earrings. “It was fun to discover them,” Moore says. “These are not pieces I would have even known about.”
The rental craze, once reserved for clothes and cars, has spread to the world of high-end jewelry. Sharing services such as Rocksbox and Switch, which will send up to three pieces for less than $30 a month, operate on the premise that mere common folk can play Cinderella for a night or two (even if we’ve got a viral version of an evil stepmother right now keeping us from the ball).
Beekman’s collection occupies the more luxurious end of the spectrum. Its lineup, featuring over 1,000 pieces from Boucheron, Tiffany, David Webb, and others, includes green diamonds, Burma rubies, and sapphires. Clients usually work with a stylist at the company’s Manhattan town house, but since the arrival of Covid-19, Novak has curbed in-person consultations. Her stylists still help clients plan for weddings remotely.
The company offers membership plans, for $69 a month or $800 a year, that allow clients to borrow pieces for as long as 24 days. Fees start at $25 per day but can go as high as $1,500 a day for, say, a Serpenti necklace from Bulgari with 10 carats of diamonds. It’s not cheap, but when you consider that the moonstone and sapphire necklace (from Munnu the Gem Palace) that Moore wore goes for $38,000, it’s a steal.
Novak’s background as a gemologist who’s consulted for Oscar de la Renta and Burberry Group Plc came in handy when she was building the collection. She joined with philanthropist Christian Keesee to bring on a team of private investors, which allowed her to purchase the items in the collection outright.
It’s the next step for a business model that’s found success in clothing rentals, a category projected to be worth almost $2 billion in 2023. Millennials and Gen Zers are increasingly likely to rent goods instead of buying them, according to market research company Lab42. In a recent survey, 29% of respondents reported having rented jewelry and other accessories such as handbags.
About 100 companies are already in the jewelry-rental business, ranging from the wedding-focused Adorn to Haute Vault, which also offers watches. Ashwin Ramasamy, co-founder of PipeCandy, an e-commerce market intelligence company, says those startups face more challenges than clothing-rental ones because of the high overhead cost to acquire items and a higher risk in shipping. “When you are selling jewelry, it’s a high margin, but when you are renting it, the profit is going to be a fraction of it,” Ramasamy says.
On the flip side, jewelry doesn’t wear and tear the way clothing does, says Beth Goldstein, fashion footwear and accessories analyst for NPD Group, so pieces can stay in rotation for much longer. “It ticks a lot of the boxes in growing retail today,” she says. “This is targeting wealthier individuals that, even if they have money to spend on jewelry like this, may want to rotate pieces.”
Wearing jewelry fit for royalty does sound fun—until you start worrying about all the bad things that could happen while it’s in your care. Borrowers must provide proof of coverage and during the rental, Beekman places a credit card or bank hold on the customer’s account for a portion of the value of the bling; it’s lifted after the piece is returned and inspected. If it’s lost or damaged, you’ll have to work that out with your insurer.
Novak acknowledges that some may have trepidation but points out that the auto industry does this all the time. “When you lease a Lexus, you don’t spend the whole time freaking out,” she says. “That’s what insurance is for.”
Having such high-priced gems in her care didn’t deter Moore from enjoying her night. “They quickly began to feel very natural,” she says, “and after being a bit careful, I was completely at ease.”
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