New York-based Tiffany said Nov. 29 that sales growth at stores open at least a year in the Americas shrank to 1 percent in the third quarter from 15 percent in the same period a year earlier. The 54 percent premium that investors were willing to pay for Tiffany shares over the Standard & Poor’s 500 Consumer Discretionary Index in mid-2011 has all but vanished, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Neiman Marcus Group Inc., which sells brands like Yurman and Webster, saw “very strong” precious jewelry sales at the Dallas-based luxury retailer in its last quarter, Chief Executive Officer Karen Katz said on a Nov. 28 conference call.

Branding is good for the industry because converting jewelry from an evergreen investment that you hand on to your heirs into a fashion accessory that goes out of style drives sales by spurring replacement purchases, Gassman said.

“Consumers have a romance with brands,” he said, “They are a shortcut to status. ‘Oh! This is a David Yurman necklace.’”

Colored Stones

The branding trend accelerated after the recession as luxury goods companies sought new areas of growth to complement their existing lines and keep attracting customers in the increasingly mature U.S. and European markets, said Hana Ben- Shabat, a New York-based partner in the retail practice at A.T. Kearney, a management consulting firm. The recent popularity of colored stones also has fueled the trend toward designer jewelry, Ben-Shabat said.

“It gives more room to play with jewelry rather than just deal with diamonds and gold,” she said.

As a result, the number of jewelry brands sold by luxury department-store chains has exploded in recent years, Ben-Shabat said. Go to the website of Macy’s Inc.’s Bloomingdale’s chain and you see more than 30.

“We’re very excited about the business,” Michael Gould, chairman of Bloomingdale’s, said in a phone interview. “We’ve added more space in all our stores to our fine jewelry departments.” The retailer also has enhanced its in-store shops, particularly those of designers Yurman, John Hardy, Roberto Coin and Ippolita, which are doing very well, he said.

A challenge for designers is figuring out how to signal the brand through the jewelry, Gassman said. “There are not nearly the opportunities to broadcast the brand as there are in clothes and handbags,” he said.