Could Black Be the New Gold? Design-Driven Challenges in New Sustainable Luxury Materials for Jewelry

Abstract

Is there a new material for use in jewelry, matching gold and precious stones, capable of maintaining the same perception of "preciousness" but that is also more sustainable, ethical, and inexpensive? This article deals with a case study within the European EcoDesign Network research project, aimed at investigating how sustainable design can help prestigious companies pinpoint new materials for the creation of jewelry, focusing on new and environmentally friendly opportunities while preserving their market position and target audience. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed. Adopting the exploring design path, a jewelry background analysis pointed out both stereotypes and possible innovations in the jewelry field: an analysis was carried out on the perception of jewels by a panel guided by a cognitive ergonomics specialist, also using the eye-tracking machine to examine participants' reactions to the jewelry involved in the study, and to establish paradigms of sustainability, preciousness, and innovation. Several meta-project proposals regarding innovations in materials and finishing were hypothesized and tested, following the main guidelines and principles of ecodesign. Lastly, a prototyping phase and some mechanical tests were implemented to verify the hypotheses of innovation. The results allowed the creation of a first set of sustainable jewelry, currently on the market.

Common and Contradictory Motivations in Buying Intentions for Green and Luxury Automobiles

“…The green luxury concept has recently become an area of burgeoning research interest [8]. Besides being attractive to academics, the purchase of green luxury items due to social and political pressure, as well as the fast-growing luxury market, has caught the attention of practitioners [9,10]. In 2018, market sales of luxury goods and services increased by 5% worldwide compared to 2017 and accounted for 1.2 trillion euros [11].…”

“…Several authors [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] state that interpersonal dimensions or price-related values, such as conspicuousness, need of uniqueness, and high quality, as well as perception-related values (the extended self and hedonic values) are fundamental in luxury marketing. Furthermore, these values have significant influence on green product purchasing [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. In scholarly research, to our best knowledge, the differences in the influence of personal and interpersonal values in regard to purchase intentions of luxury and green products have not been examined.…”

Implementation of design culture as a strategic innovation through design-oriented industrial conversion and product diversification

“…The problem-solving phase begins with the action-experimentation step of the research that adopts and merges the version of the Double Diamond (Design Council, 2019) for Design for Social Innovation (Anderson, 2019) and the Exploring Design methodology (Germak & De Giorgi, 2008), defining a project methodology (Figure 4). It combines the convergence and divergence path typical of the double diamond methodology and the exploration of feasible scenarios with future products and innovative services of the exploring design methodology (Lerma, Dal Palù, Actis Grande & De Giorgi, 2018).…”

Sustainable luxury: current status and perspectives for future research

“…Yet, they also stress supply chain complexity, commercial pressures, and power distribution as factors impeding the implementation of sustainability in such a supply chain. Lerma et al (2017) discuss an example of new eco-friendly materials to replace gold in jewellery.…”