Show shines brightly as ever

After 25 years Jewellery Arabia continues to sparkle and shine with its vast displays of watches, diamonds and gems.

The glittering five-day event, which features more than 600 exhibitors from 30 countries, attracted thousands of shoppers in search for dazzling deals for loved ones, including presents for the coming festive season.

The 21,000sqm spectacular featured a huge range of finished jewellery, luxury timepieces, precious stones, objets d’art, clocks, fine writing instruments and more from Hong Kong, India, Italy, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, UK, the US and, of course, the kingdom’s leading jewellers such as Al Sarraj Diamond Centre.

Al Sarraj, which was established in Bahrain in 1982 and has been participating in the exhibition for the past 24 years, deals with loose diamonds as well as precious and semiprecious stones, including an exclusive collection of ruby, sapphire, emerald, tanzanite and alexandrite.

Its range of Bahraini natural pearls and an enticing selection of pearl jewellery attract attention too. Last year the jewellers made the headlines after featuring a BD60,3368 ($1.6 million) pearl necklace which was snapped up.

For this event, Al Sarraj, which had two stands in Hall 2, showed off a single unheated and untreated Burmese ruby worth BD64,000. Kabeer Ahamed, Seef Mall branch manager, said: “Every year we bring something different to Jewellery Arabia and this year we wanted to offer our loyal customers and potential clients a range of fantastic rubies, diamonds and loose stones.”

To add a personal touch, Al Sarraj’s team of craftsmen and goldsmiths at its base in Bahrain offered customised jewellery to clients after they had chosen their favourite stones, and described business from day one of the exhibition as ‘great’ and it continued throughout. Rubies and diamonds were not the only gems that captured people’s attention as the amber, in particular, featured brightly across the exhibition as well.

Amber is a fossilised tree resin, not sap, which has been appreciated for its colour and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, it is made into a variety of decorative objects such as beads that are treasured across the region.

Rosaries were being snapped up from BD50. Amberage, owned by Lithuanian couple Martynas Stankevicius and Vesta Popova, have been exhibiting products in various colours and sizes for the past 10 years at the exhibition.

Vesta said: “We have returning customers because they love the purity of our stones, the process we use and the quality of our work. We have amber from Lithuainia, Columbia, Poland and other countries. Jewellery Arabia gives us a chance to meet up with customers.”

World famous watch and jewellery houses also made a return appearance including major brand names such as OFFICINE PANERAI, the Italian maison of luxury sports watches.

In collaboration with its longstanding partner, Asia Jewellers, PANERAI launched the Luminor 1950 Equation of Time 8 Days GMT wristwatch priced BD8,300.

Milvin George, the managing director of OFFICINE PANERAI, said: “Bahrain is a wonderful country where there is a good understanding of the watchmaking culture. “We always come back to the exhibition because we like meeting the collectors, connoisseurs, and people who want to connect with us and talk about the brand.

We have been collaborating with Asia Jewellers since we launched the brand in Bahrain a decade ago.” There was also plenty of more affordable jewellery and watches on offer during the show. Founder of theoverdressed. com and fashion blogger, Dana Al Khalifa, presented a curated pavilion of jewellers from all over the world featuring a range of gems and jewels, starting from as little as BD40 to the dizzy heights of BD22,000.

Dana said: “I like to curate a selection of accessible price points because I don’t think it’s fair that women only end up receiving jewellery when they get married. “This is a place for the hardworking girl to treat herself to something that she can wear and truly appreciate, something that doesn’t just sit in the safe collecting dust! “This is my third year featuring different designers. I started with one stand and this year I’ve expanded to two. I try to feature a mix of brands. I love to support local designers so I have two very important jewellers from Saudi Arabia on show.”

Located on the stands were Charmaleena Jewellery and French NUUN jewels based and made in Paris, as well as Italian labels Istanbouli Gioielli and Maria Rosario Cataldo. New to the pavilion was Walter Faith from New York alongside a regular attraction, namely Dana’s close friend and mentor, Suzanne Kalan, from Los Angeles.

Dana said: “Her pieces have been well received all over the Middle East. I love having her here.” The Modest Belle blogger Sara Abdul Ghaffar, from Riffa, and her mum Mariam Al Mahmood, who attend the exhibition every year, sometimes twice, loved the pavilion.

Sara said: “It’s so interesting because Dana brings several jewellers and my favourite is Suzanne Kalan. Her jewellery is modern but still the kind you can wear daily. “My mum is more into traditional Bahraini gold sets and pearls which is why we stopped over at our relative’s stand Al Mahmood Pearls and I don’t need to tell you that you can never go wrong with pearls … especially Bahraini pearls! “We tend to find good deals and coming to the exhibition once is sometimes never enough although I always leave the negotiating to my mum.”

Mum’s the word ... and who can argue with that!