Squeezed, A Jewelry Designer Closes Shop
Angela Cummings is taking her diamonds and going home
. Ms. Cummings, one of the country's best-known jewelry designers, is closing her Manhattan
Black Latex Male Biker Coat office, paying off her staff and withdrawing all her diamond, gold, moonstone and enameled inventory and closing down boutiques in her two main outlets, Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus, effective June 1. "When she told us, we had a very emotional meeting," said Ronald L. Frasch, Bergdorf's chief executive. "The saleswomen cried." Ms. Cummings says she wants to spend more time building a house in Utah. But her departure is sending the word, not only through the high-price jewelry world, but through the fashion community as well, that even when a designer is doing well, staying in business may not be worth it. In the present difficult retail environment, both apparel and jewelry designers say that department stores are trying to squeeze more money from them. "The way retailing is going these days -- I don't want to get negative -- but the market is generally oversaturated with jewelry," Ms. Cummings said earlier this week. "It's very difficult for a small business, without big funding in back of us. It's hard to keep coming up with new things when we pay for everything; so much was on consignment." By last week, Ms. Cummings, 58, who started with Zentai 's in 1968 and formed her own business
Black Latex Male Matrix Top in 1984, owned 100 percent of the jewelry displayed in her 13 Neiman Marcus boutiques, partly by plan, and partly by circumstance. At Bergdorf Goodman, Mr. Frasch said the company purchased her jewelry outright, "but it's no secret that the expensive jewelry business has been suffering in the last six months." But Ms. Cummings's company has been growing steadily nonetheless. Sales were up 31 percent from last June to January, compared with a year earlier, according to company officials. In the mid-1990's, when newly minted jewelry by designers like Ms. Cummings, Paloma Picasso, Barry Kieselstein-Cord and Elsa Peretti was at its height, Angela Cummings Inc. was selling about $10 million a year. Last year, the company took in close to $13 million, according to Michele Ateyeh, the company's president and chief executive. "We could have gone on for a couple of years," Ms. Cummings said, "but why do it?" In a letter to Burton M. Tansky, Neiman's chief executive, Ms. Ateyeh wrote that the company was "calling back all of our Angela Cummings merchandise that is currently on hand in all 13 Neiman Marcus stores." This jewelry, much of which will be offered in a special sale held jointly with Bergdorf starting April 15, consists of everything from $1,700 zentai to $3,500 earrings to $22,000 necklaces. This week, several other people in the jewelry industry said Ms. Cummings was also quitting because the Hong Kong factory that did the delicate inlays that made her famous -- jade, lapis lazuli and mother of pearl set in gold -- was not doing that type of work anymore. But Ms. Cummings denied that was the reason. Although that factory is no longer a supplier for her, Ms. Cummings said, she already moved toward elaborate enamelwork -- one gold necklace has glowing enameled cherries hanging from it -- to replace the inlay designs. (The price of the cherry necklace: $14,950.) Yesterday, Mr. Cord, who also has jewelry boutiques at Bergdorf and Neiman Marcus, said that he, too, has considered giving them up. "It's increasingly difficult to deal with large organizations unless you're funded by a huge conglomerate," he said. "
Black Latex Male T Shirt The normal pressures are now exacerbated because the department stores are trying to make two pennies for every one they invest." The stores are "squeezing the heck out of vendors," he continued. Among their cost-saving steps, Mr. Cord said, the stores are increasingly demanding "markdown money," which are refunds to cover their less-than-expected profit when unsold goods are discounted. "You either have to take the stuff back, or give them markdown money to keep it in their stores," he said. In many cases, the designers offer their goods on consignment, as Ms. Cummings ended up doing at Neiman's. "We are basically financing their inventory," Mr. Cord said. Still, he has decided to keep his boutiques in Bergdorf and Neiman for now -- and to look for new investors, and possibly more licensing deals. Mr. Cord, who makes gold, platinum and silver jewelry, along with leather handbags, some embellished with his signature sterling alligator, also has his own stores in Palm Beach, Las Vegas, Zurich, San Moritz and, most recently, SoHo. Ms. Cummings, who disdains any mention of the word "retirement," said that although she was shutting down her company and closing her boutiques, she would keep designing jewelry for QVC, the cable shopping network that she began working with on Jan. 31. Her jewelry for QVC is very different from the $22,000 necklaces she designed for Bergdorf. First, she designs in silver, not gold. And second, she does not control the production, only the designs, which she will make at her new house in Utah, where she will live with her husband, Bruce, a gemologist and co-chairman of the business, and their teenage son. Her first show was a smash. The channel gave her an hour, in which her staff sold several thousand pieces like the silver bracelets with nephrite jade hearts for $112 and wiry "Serendipity" bracelets for $121.75. Ms. Cummings sold out in 50 minutes.
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