Birmingham’s Spring Fair lacks in the ethics department

Opulent Ethics visited the 2011 Spring Fair at Birmingham’s NEC this week where there were over 400 exhibitors at the Jewellery Show section with new designers and big names rubbing shoulders.
Despite all of this we were disappointed by the lack of anything much ethical on the agenda. 

26 free seminars including trend talks, information on marketing for e-commerce and lectures on Intellectual Property rights were available but, sadly, only 1 of these concerned ethics. Opulent Ethics find it very strange that there was so much interest in ethics at IJL 2010 back in September and then come February of the following year, on the eve of Fairtrade gold being released the only mention is 1 talk on the pro’s and con’s of buying Fair Trade.

Of course there were some wonderful pieces of jewellery on show, especially in the Design Section, and it was great to find that there were some ethical exhibitors including Sara Preisler, Leju Designs, Earth Works and Out of Peru but we felt that we really had to search them out.

Sara Preisler pendant

Sarah Ho Mari earrings

James Newman rings

  

We here at Opulent Ethics think that it is a great shame that one of the biggest jewellery shows in the UK is not acknowledging one of the biggest issues in the jewellery trade and not making a point of highlighting a very important section of the trade.

So did we manage to find any evidence of other companies changing their ethics? Yes we did. After noticing some advertising on the side of the Weston Beamor stand and chatting to some of the staff we were pleasantly surprised to hear that Weston Beamor are now fully licensed to cast using Fairtrade gold. One disadvantage, however, is that anyone who wishes to cast using the gold also has to be licensed. Things are never easy or straightforward!

And elsewhere in the news; in Retail Jeweller magazine we managed to find a 55 word article on Ute Decker and Linnie McLarty’s Fairtrade gold pop-up shop which opens this week and a letter from Greg Valerio regarding the great work that ARM and FLO have done in bringing the Fairtrade gold idea to fruition. What is happening to this world when big news like the release of Fairtrade gold barely hits page 17 let alone the headlines?!   

That’s a very disappointed all for now….