Editor’s Note
As the jewelry market evolves, major brands are strategically expanding their appeal to younger demographics. This article examines how companies are balancing premium offerings with accessible collections to engage Generation Z consumers.
The jewelry market is on an upward trend. Leading domestic jewelry brands such as Golden Dew, Stonehenge, Didier Dubot, Lloyd, and J.ESTINA are actively targeting Generation Z. While maintaining their focus on high-end fine jewelry, these brands have strengthened their affordable collections to attract younger consumers, placing emphasis on the ‘brand experience’.
Golden Dew’s fine jewelry brand ‘Golden Dew’ continues its steady growth by attracting both VIPs and new customers with its high-end jewelry and ‘petit’ items. The brand plans to continuously develop designs and launch new collections for its high-end line aimed at existing VIPs to enhance brand value.
The brand also continues to develop unique events. The AR virtual try-on service, launched in 2021, has consistently received positive feedback. It allows potential customers to experience key products before trying them on in-store. The service will be continuously upgraded to offer virtual try-ons for new collections.
Sejung’s ‘Didier Dubot’, a demi-fine jewelry brand with French sensibility, is leading this market. Celebrating its 10th anniversary last year, it has adopted a more aggressive sales strategy targeting women aged 28-38 with an ‘Affordable Luxury’ consumption pattern.
Simultaneously, it is building a sensual brand image through strategic star marketing. It has significantly raised brand awareness by appointing top fashion icons as muses, from domestic actresses like Jun Ji-hyun, Suzy, Lee Na-young, and Han Ye-seul to global stars like Léa Seydoux and Julia Roitfeld. Currently, Shin Min-a is the muse for various campaigns.
E-World launched the lab-grown fine jewelry brand ‘The Grace London’ in line with the global trend of the fine jewelry market reorganizing around lab-grown diamonds, and it is sailing smoothly. As a lab-grown diamond specialist brand, The Grace London achieved high performance, including selling 100 million KRW worth of products in just 2 hours during a VIP event at Lotte Department Store Dongtan last August.
Meanwhile, ‘Lloyd’, developed by E-World, made headlines by selling a 1-carat diamond ring for 1 million KRW, with 1,000 units sold out in 3 weeks. This drew attention as a natural diamond ring of similar size would cost at least 5 million KRW.
Lloyd actively launched lab-grown diamond items this year, resulting in a 17-fold sales increase in 2023 compared to 2022. It plans to target the domestic lab-grown diamond market with trendy designs and a message of allowing anyone to enjoy luxury in daily life without burden.
Woorim FMG’s jewelry brand ‘Stonehenge’ actively targeted the 2030 generation this year through new muse selection and unique collaborations with non-competing brands. In addition to actress Jun Ji-hyun, the brand appointed NewJeans as its new brand model.
The news alone of selecting this group, which has rapidly risen as a Gen Z ‘want-to-be’ icon, generated significant buzz. Particularly, the Stonehenge x NewJeans content released in April and September last year was a huge hit, with each member’s video recording over 1 million views.
In addition to selecting muses and creating collaborative content to attract Gen Z consumers, Stonehenge is also expanding its silver jewelry collections accessible to those in their teens and twenties. While Stonehenge previously focused on 14K gold jewelry, starting this year, it has been actively releasing silver products priced between 100,000 to 200,000 KRW, such as the Love Note collection.
J.ESTINA’s ‘J.ESTINA’ is increasing its volume by launching exclusive products for online activation and strengthening marketing. It particularly targets the 2030 generation through active star marketing featuring IU.
Beyond video and magazine ads with its muse, its cross-industry collaboration also drew attention. J.ESTINA and Chamisul (a soju brand), along with their shared model IU, conducted a fresh collaboration.
The collaborative goods unveiled last August sold out immediately after launch. This was the second collaboration with Chamisul; in 2021, 500 sets sold out in just 1 minute and 30 seconds. The brand is also planning offline events to target the MZ generation this year.