Heads up: Cheap knock-offs from China

While searching for something else, I came across this China wholesaler offering the kind of knock-offs one finds sold on the streets of New York. No Brightonista worth her bag heart charm would ever be fooled into thinking these were the real thing. I was going to make a joke about these coming from cheapknockoffs.com, but apparently someone has actually claimed that domain and it takes you to a scam site. Figures.

QVC to feature Brighton on April 14

Mark your calendars, Brightonistas. QVC will be featuring Brighton on its show during two different time slots on April 14. Get your taxes done first, and if you have any money left (or coming back in a refund) tune in. QVC carries a limited selection of Brighton jewelry and purses for purchase at any time on its website, www.qvc.com. Prices there are the full retail price on most products. But as anyone who's ever seen QVC knows, you can get some good deals during their live broadcast promotions. Brighton began its partnership with QVC in late 2007. Founder Jerry Kohl said he wanted to use QVC to introduce a broader audience to Brighton products and to ultimately drive more customers into the retail stores. Your blogger can't speak to the success of that specific strategy other than to report that Brighton did see its highest sales ever in 2008. But I can tell you that many of the discounted QVC products find their way to ebay, and I have gotten a good deal on them there.

I'd like to buy a vowel, please

I'm a word person. I love words, sentences, paragraphs, stories, books, even individual letters.
As a child, I loved sorting through noodle letters for words in alphabet soup. As a Brightonista, I have been slowly aquiring letters from the Brighton ABCs collection.
At $7.50 a piece, you just can't jump in and buy a whole alphabet. I started with my initials, p, m, b. Once I got the Oklahoma state charm and the orange and black spacers, I decided I wanted the option of making a bracelet for alma mater, Oklahoma State, so I added o,s,u. Then I realized all I needed was one more m to spell out m-o-m and wear it in a bracelet with the soccer ball my son gave me. (Get it? Soccer Mom!)
It finally hit me today that all I needed to spell my name was 2 ls and a y. So I headed to Aida's, navigated past the construction equipment (see earlier post) to buy my letters. Two years ago when I first longed to spell out my name, five letters and four spacers seemed like a huge investment. Now, I just needed two consonants and a vowel. Y is a vowel, right?
After I built by name, I studied my 10 letters. Ten. That's one more than you get in Scrabble. What else, what else? Hey, look! p-m-s! Too bad Brighton doesn't make a chocolate charm.

Wood you look at that beautiful jewelry!

Whenever an errand takes me me within a mile of a Brighton store, I invariably end up stopping by just to look around and see what's new. Yesterday I stopped by Wild at Heart in east Wichita, just as the shop owner was unpacking her latest shipment of Brighton, which included this butterfly necklace and other pieces from the Gretel collection. The combination of laser engraved wood with silver is yet another successful combination of textures by designers. I've always enjoyed the combinations of silver and leather and natural stone (the Imagine collection being a favorite example) and I am charmed by the inclusion of yet another natural material, wood. While the Gretel pieces have a gentle, almost lace-like feel to them, the Silverwood collection goes the other direction, as a chunky celebration of woods that will immediately appeal to anyone who ever loved to play with wooden blocks. That would include me, obviously, and the reason goes to the heart of why I am a Brightonista. I am a sensory junky: I love to experience abundant colors, textures, shapes and designs in various combinations... and Brighton never disappoints.

Sending the right message at an interview

I have a job interview in 30 minutes. The front page of the newspaper is announcing thousands of more local layoffs. I have just put on a new interview suit (grey) and a cream silk shirt, hoping to send a warm-but-serious-job-candidate message. Now the fun part: Which jewelry? Which piece says warm, nurturing (its a p.r. job on behalf of a children's organization) but also mature, serious, competent? We Brightonistas know that every piece says something different. I'm thinking pearls... but not just pearls. (That says boring.) Ah, perfect: Balladry. Heart, butterfly, bird and pearls. Whimsical, warm and professional. Somewhere there is a woman who designed this for me, for today. Thank you. If today goes well, it may just become my lucky bracelet.

I got a letter from Coldwater Creek's CEO today

A hand-signed letter arrived in the mail today from Daniel Griesemer, CEO of Coldwater Creek. No, it wasn't about my earlier post about the lawsuit with Brighton. (Thank goodness!) It was actually a personal letter of thanks in response to an email I wrote earlier this month to the Coldwater Creek board of directors. I 'd just had a particularly good experience in my local retail store that included a hassle-free return and discount for donating a jacket to Dress for Success.
In my earlier life, I have been that person working in middle management who wonders if the CEO has any idea who I am or how wonderful my team is. So I decided to do that local manager a favor and look up the Coldwater Creek corporate folks and write an email.
I was pleased to find several contact numbers on CWC's web site including an email address for the board of directors. So I wrote an email with no idea what would happen. But sure enough, my email reached the board and my new friend Daniel, the CEO in Sandpoint, Idaho, who says he's also going to pass my email along to the local retailer.
So why, you ask, are you writing about this on a Brighton blog?
Here's why: I appreciate it when a company's leaders make themselves accessible to customers, and Brighton could do better at this. Yes, there is a 1800 number for customer service on the Brighton web site, but no link to any of the corporate people. I guess I will just have to hope Brighton execs are in the habit of googling themselves so that they may find this blog and read all the (mostly) nice things I am saying about them.

Watch out: Timepieces can be addictive

Joni, a Brighton-ista in Colorado, says she's had a love of watches ever since she was old enough to put one on. Her all-time favorite is a 1970s Snoopy watch, where Snoopy is playing tennis, his racket is the minute hand and a tennis ball goes around as the second hand. (I had that watch too!) But now Joni is an avid collector of Brighton watches. I discovered from her post in Facebook that she has 33 (!) watches and most all of the matching bracelets. I asked Joni, Why watches? Many people don't even wear watches anymore. They use cell phones to tell time. Here's what she said:

I would imagine that my passion for watches was simply that most are affordable and a wonderful way to express my individuality in a piece of jewelry. You need many watches for all of your outfits. Since Brighton makes so many wonderful pieces, it is not hard to have a large collection....Of course having a store within 5 minutes certainly contributes to my delinquency. My habit became enhanced after my divorce, kind of a nice outlet huh? I would look for clearances or stores that were no longer going to sell Brighton - my little secret. I would buy up watches, bracelets, whatever I could get the best deal on. Some I even got 2 for one.

Joni said she couldn't name a favorite Brighton watch, but she does have one that holds the most sentimental value for her: It is a heart-shaped Brighton watch with a pink leather band that was a gift from her oldest son: My son had just come back from the Army a couple years ago and we had not spoken for a while, it was his 'peace' offering to me. (I did not want him to enlist) It came with tons of love and that was the most important gift of all.

As much as she loves her Brighton watches, Joni said the watch she really wants is one that Brighton doesn't make yet: A sports watch. So many women could benefit from having a cool sports watch - that does not look like a MAN'S watch. I have faith that Brighton will come through for us athletic girls.

While Joni's waiting on that new design, I know what I am going to do: Make sure my five Brighton watches (yes, only five) get fresh batteries so I can start enjoying them again.

Thanks for sharing your story, Joni!

The problem with diamonds: Part 2

Check this out... I wasn't imagining it about the diamond market being kaput. Here is a story from Saturday's Washington Post.
Last fall, recession-wary Americans more concerned about basics than bling began to lose interest in diamonds and other jewelry, and now the sales slump is reverberating around the world.
Retailers are taking a big hit. Tiffany said Monday that its profit dropped more than 75 percent in the fourth quarter. Lynn Jewelers, a downtown Washington presence since 1946, closed its doors last month. Christian Bernard Jewelers, a national chain with several stores in the Washington area, has shut down, as well. They are among 1,000-plus jewelers across the country to go out of business in the past year.
Read the full story here.

Forget diamonds, Brighton is girl's best friend

Brightonistas, I have just learned a very sobering truth about diamonds. They aren't worth near what we pay for them. They retain very little value. This was driven home to me the past month as I tried to sell a diamond ring that, lets just say, no longer held any sentimental value to me.
I tried jewelry buyers around town and the best offer I got was $400 for a ring that cost $1,200 nearly 20 years ago. (I can still see that Kay Jewelry salesman who showed us charts and told us don't worry about the cost, this would be a great investment.) Ha!
A very nice, honest local dealer advised me that the best odds for getting anything close to the retail price of a diamond is to go on ebay. So I posted it for 10 days and the highest bid was $300. I did not let it go for that.
This is a fairly quality diamond, too. Half carat, H color, SI2. I just designed a ring with the exact specifications on http://www.bluenile.com/ and it came out with a pricetag of $2,100.
As I have mentioned, I also auctioned a number of older items from my Brighton collection. Every one of those items sold, all for more than half their original retail value and most for 80 percent or more.
The lesson here is obvious ladies: Brighton jewelry is worth much more than diamonds! (Or at least, its a much better investment per dollar.) From now on, I am putting my money on Brighton.

Charmed by charms, she can't get enough

Lorraine from Castle Rock, Colorado, is a Brightonista who loves pink! Check out this photo she sent me that shows three of the bracelets she built using Brighton's ABC charms. I contacted Lorraine after I saw her post on a Brighton fan site on Facebook, in which she said, "I went today during my lunch hour and built another charm bracelet." I have stopped off for a charm or two before, but never have I had the pleasure of going to my local Brighton store and building an entire bracelet at one time, much less over a lunch hour. How much fun that must be! So I asked Lorraine to send these pictures and tell me about her bracelets and why she chose the charms she did. Here's what she wrote:

Pink is my favorite color, I like rubber ducks, I drink lots of hot tea, I like hearts, R is for my husband name (Ralph) L for my name (Lorraine), I like cupcakes, they call me Princess, I wear tiaras, lady bug is cute, I collect pigs.

Asked which charms she hopes to collect next, Lorraine said:

I want the shamrock but my shop was out if it when I last went, the apple and ballet slipper are what come to mind at the moment. I'm going to take the R and L off and put them on the key fob.

And last I heard, Lorraine had plans to build a black bracelet next.

I think we should all thank Lorraine for her part to improve the national economy with this wonderful display of consumer confidence. You go girl!

Like that's gonna stop me!

Neither wind, nor rain, nor heavy construction equipment will keep this Brightonista from her favorite store. That said, it took me a while today to map out how exactly I was going to get past the orange cones, heavy equipment, closed roads and torn-up concrete to make it to the front door of Aida's, my Brighton haunt of the past 10 years. I had come to share the love, so to speak, from my recent ebay windfall. And I knew Aida's could give me what ebay couldn't: instant gratification!
The number of physical obstacles between me and the store left me wondering whether Aida's was even open. I worried for Aida (both proprietess and friend) and wondered whether her business could withstand both the downfall in the economy and the detour to her store.
Aida is a strikingly upbeat person. When I finally got inside, I found her not unhappy about the construction outside her door but thankful that the work was behind schedule. The street widening had originally been planned for December. THAT would have hurt, she said. I lingered inside for an hour, choosing new charms (have you seen the kitty cat? It has rhinestone eyes and a tiny heart hanging from its collar!) and caressing leather purses, imagining which one I might one day buy. The charms are doing well at Aida's, in downtown Wichita. She now has an entire counter devoted to them and the display is quite enticing. (I walked away with five!) I was just about to leave when another two women walked in, obviously as undeterred as I was. It was then I knew Aida would be okay. Brightonistas, we take care of our own.

It wasn't exactly a Cindarella moment

Speaking of used shoes. ... I have been forced to come to terms with the fact that these shoes do not fit, will not fit, no matter how much I love them. These are the Whitney-style shoes that coordinate with the extremely popular Crystal Heart jewelry. I wanted them from the moment their sparkle captured my eye at Aida's, my local Brighton retailer. I believe they were $160 originally, and I just couldn't manage that at the time. So I waited til the end of the season. I was thrilled when I finally saw them on sale, and not so thrilled when I saw there were none left in my size. Like Cinderella's stepsisters, I ignored the obvious in favor of oblivious optimism: I tried on the 9 narrow, declared them good enough, and bought them. Two wearings (or should I say, trippings) later, I surrendered and put them away. And today they are on ebay, along with a diamond ring and a pearl ring, two family heirlooms. Let the record show that I did not hesitate to auction family heirloom jewelry, but these shoes I put up for sale last.

Did someone say road trip? Outlets await!

I'm not one for long-distance driving but I may reconsider. Turns out that San Marcos, Texas (a good 600-mile, 9-hour drive away) has the closest Brighton outlet store to my home in Kansas. What? You didn't know Brighton even had outlets stores? That's not too surprising. You can't find them by searching Brighton's official website. The steeply discounted outlets are listed among the other stores in the store locator, but not identified as outlets. I'd never heard of them until I heard rumor of their existance on Facebooks' Brighton fan site. One Facebook post taunted me with the promise of good deals at an outlet in New York:
"My friend Laura and I make a quarterly pilgrimage to the Brighton Outlet at the Woodbury Commons in NY... OMG...$20 dollar watches...$22 necklaces...a $49 dollar bag that is $275 in the new catalog...it's dangerous! We spent 2 hours in the store."
A silver-plated El Dorado!
Unfortunately, Facebook members offered little other specific info on where such retail wonders might be hidden. After some Internet sluething, here's what I found out:
There are six Brighton outlet stores, none of them close to me. Two in New York, one in Virginia, one in California, one planned for Florida, and the aforementioned outlet in Texas. All of them are located at outlet malls in tourism hotspots:
Fashion Outlets Niagra Falls, Niagra Falls, New York
www.fashionoutletsniagra.com
Woodbury Common Premium Outlet, near New York City
St. Augustine Premium Outlets in St. Augustine, Florida (due to open later this year)
www.premiumoutlets.com
Prime Outlets, San Marcos, Texas
Prime Outlets, Williamsburg, Virginia
www.primeoutlets.com
Cabazon Outlets, near Palm Springs, Calif.
www.cabaszonoutlets.com
You cannot call these stores directly, but if you want more information it turns out Brighton does maintain an outlet information line: 1 (888) 323-5118. So tell me, Brightonistas... How far will you go for a great deal?

She's in a collector state of mind

Leslie, a Brightonista from Baltimore, likes the hunt: Her pursuit of Brighton's state charm bracelets started when she spotted the Colorado bracelet in Denver. She wasn't immediately sure if she wanted it. "It was a toss up between that and a different one and that little green backpack charm was the deciding factor. That’s what got me hooked! The charms were so adorable and had such intricate detail," she says. When she learned that Brighton had made 11 state bracelets (see them here), she decided she wanted them all. But how to get them? Each state's bracelet is only carried by retailers in that specific state. "I put out requests to any and all of my friends that I knew were traveling," Leslie says. And with the help of five friends, she got them all! Here's how she did it, in her own words:

My CA bracelet was picked up by my husband's co-worker while he and his wife were vacationing there. My HI was picked up by a guy my husband and I used to be stationed with in CA. My IL was picked up while I was on a trip in St Louis. A friend lived in IL just across the state line and on our way to dinner we stopped to pick it up. My GA was actually purchased off of eBay. I didn’t know anyone heading that way. My AZ, FL & NV were picked up by a co-worker on 3 separate trips while they were traveling for work. My TX was picked up by another co-worker while she visited her family. My DC was picked up during a visit to my local Brighton shop.

And her New York bracelet? "I'm originally from NY and my BFF gave it to me on my birthday," she says. The NY bracelet is her favorite. (Mine, too!)

Leslie said she had mixed emotions once she had the entire collection.

"I was so excited once I got them all but it was also kind of sad too. It was as if the thrill of the hunt was over," she says. "Not to worry though, Brighton has plenty of other beautiful items to chase after and now I'm hooked on the charms. ... Since it doesn’t look like there are going to be any additional state bracelets, I’d like to collect charms for the states in which I have either lived or have visited." Leslie is in the military so that is going to be a lot of states. Good luck, Leslie!

Hard lessons learned on ebay

As I said before, I occasionally sell off some of my existing Brighton collection to pay for new acquisitions. This week I had 10 listings on ebay. The auctions are over and the final totals are in: I made $290, which would have more than covered the new Brighton items I just bought. Would have, if I had not decided to forgo self-discipline in favor of a new purse. Now I am in the red for about $100.
I suspect I would be closer to breaking even if I already knew the hard ebay lesson I learned this weekend: If you have multiple pieces from a collection, sell them separately and not as a set. I sold two sets (necklace, earrings, bracelet) and neither brought what I had hoped. One set went for $53 and the other for $62. Monitoring other auctions, I noticed that the individual pieces in each of these sets were commanding $30 to $40 on average, which means each of my sets might have brought $100 if sold separately. That's closer to what I was hoping for.
I'm guessing higher demand must exist for individual pieces because the majority of bidders are not looking to buy full sets, but to fill out incomplete retired sets.
That said, if you happen to buying, you will probably get a better deal bidding on a set than buying several pieces separately.
Live and learn, Brightonistas. Live and learn.

Make Friends with other Brightonistas

Brightonistas, I have added a new feature to this blog that allows you to stay connected with me and with each other. It is similar to Facebook and interacts with Facebook. It is a product from Google that is still in Beta testing so it might not be perfect. I would love to see your smiling faces on this page. Just sign up as a follower under the Brightonista Follower section on the lefthand sidebar of this page (right below About Me.)

Make a mama proud: Design for Brighton!

I met Rhonda Gruss Spayd through Facebook's Brighton group pages. Turns out her daughter Lisa is a designer for Brighton, a woman who may have already touched your life with her talents. According to mom, Lisa is the artist behind Brighton's Flutter collection! For the record, I have both Flutter bracelets, both sets of earrings, the necklace and the anklet and I will NEVER sell them. In fact, I just grew my Flutter collection, snapping up the Flutter flower earrings yesterday! Mom says her flower garden served as a source of inspiration for Lisa. Here's the story in Rhonda's own words:

Her name is Lisa Spayd Sendre. ... After graduation she got a job for American Greetings designing cards. She was the first one to design the cards that are 3-D and they were selling very well for the Co. Then her then boyfriend got a job in California and she wanted to follow him. When they got to CA, she went online to find a job and applied to Brighton. Out of thousands of applicants she got the job. She has been working there for about 4 or 5 years and loves what she does. ... Lisa's designs have sold very well. Her first design was the Flutter collection and one of the recent was the Contempo Collection and she has done purses, reading glasses, and jewelery. She has done lots of straw purses also. She has taken lots of ideas from my garden. I love to garden and some of the things she has done are flowers. ... Brighton is a great company to work for. They are like one big family and that includes all the employees from the factory workers to the designers.

Look for Lisa's latest design, Silverwood, to be one of this season's biggest hits. Its a texture-rich combination of varied colors of woods and silver, presented as circles, spheres and asymetic squares. Thank you Rhonda for introducing us to your daughter. Lisa, I am really glad you moved to California!

We owe it all to Jerry and Laura

Like many of you, I was familiar with the basic story of Brighton Collectibles that appears on the official website. But I didn't really get a sense of the founders as people until I read this wonderful piece by Cheryl Hall of the Dallas Morning News. It is absolutely worth reading in full, but here's an excerpt:

Brighton was a $28 million men's belts manufacturer just starting a women's belt line in 1991 when Jerry Kohl hired Laura Young to teach his salesmen how to sell to ladies' stores.
Young had spent 10 years in marketing and sales with Ginnie Johansen Designs, a Dallas accessories company, so she knew the ropes. Brighton's ladies' belt business went from $200,000 at 300 stores to $1.75 million at 1,200 stores during her first year on the job.
She and Kohl decided to add shoes, handbags and jewelry.
"At the time, we didn't know anything about making jewelry, and we surely didn't know anything about making shoes," Young says. "So we developed the first Brighton handbags in 1993. Our signature logo was a heart." ... Brighton has added jewelry and footwear, along with a range of other products, and 2008 revenue topped $300 million – the highest ever.

Imagine that: Brighton started as a men's belt store, which I guess explains why they carry men's products today. I had not really understood that. Here is a photo of Jerry and Laura I found on another blog site. (Nice belt Jerry!) Now you can recognize them if you ever see them in your local store. If you do, be sure to say thank you!

Behold, Coldwater Creek's smoking shoe

Maybe you already knew this Brightonistas, but it was news to me: In December a U.S. District Court jury in San Diego told Coldwater Creek to pay Brighton $6.7 million for it willful violation of Brighton's intellectual property rights. Specifically, Coldwater Creek was accused of copying the Brighton heart trademark and copying Brighton's look. Coldwater Creek said it was not guilty and planned to appeal. I hadn't learned of the lawsuit until today when I came across the news online, but it was no secret to me that Coldwater Creek was producing Brighton knock-offs. Just take a look at these shoes: The one on the left is a pre-owned Brighton shoe I purchased on ebay and the one on the right was purchased from Coldwater Creek's website. I admit it! I bought it specifically because it had the Brighton look, for the same reason I have purchased CWC's handbags. And I can testify that many people mistook my CWC items for Brighton. (Your compulsively honest blogger corrected them, but also told them where to get the look-alikes.) I had always wondered why Brighton allowed this blatant rip-off of its look. But apparently, it was Coldwater Creek that sued first in 2006, alleging injury of its reputation after a Brighton dealer in Beverly Hills wrote a letter to Coldwater Creek accusing them of producing cheap knock-offs. I can guess why Brighton didn't sue first: Coldwater Creek is the Goliath in this dispute, with $1.024 billion in sales last year, according to its SEC filings. Brighton is privately held so its exact sales numbers aren't reported to the SEC, but company officials said sales were about $300 million last year. Now that I know all this I feel pretty guilty for buying the CWC knock-offs. And as one of Coldwater Creek's better customers (I'm designated a "One Creek" customer) I am pretty disappointed in the them for not admitting the obvious. Message to CWC: You do so many things right, you don't need to copy Brighton.

Meeting Brightonistas on Facebook

I met Suze from Sanpoint, Idaho today through Facebook, which has two groups dedicated to Brighton fans. Suze is a true Brightonista! "I LOVE Brighton!!! I have over 25 complete sets, 7 watches, 4 pairs of sunglasses, a wallet, a handbag and so on..." she wrote in a post on Facebook's Fans of Brighton group page. When I read that I had to find out more, so I wrote her, asking about her collections. Here's Suze's reply:

"I LOVE Brighton soooooooooooo much! I started collecting it around 10 years ago. My first collection was the Live Love Laugh necklace, earrings and bracelet. ... I own the following complete sets (necklace, earrings and bracelet) - Romance, Voler, Blaire Heart, Picadilly, Waterlilly, Portabello, Cote D'Azur (pink and blue sets), Garden of Eden, Let It Snow, Holiday Joy, Forget Me Not, Stitch In Time, La Vie En Rose, Candy Kiss, Clarity, Tuscan Etched Heart, Winter Wonderland (bracelet only - there were no earrings or necklace) Flutter Butterfly, Kriss Kross (bracelet), Spring Fever, Orchard, Ice Diamond, Vienna Hearts, Lucia, Flora Pearl, Moonlight Gaze, Laurel Myth, Snow Diva, Geneva Pearl and Blue Bell. I also have a great handbag, wallet, several sunglasses, hair clips, belts, ornaments, charms and other misc. stuff. The only thing I haven't really gotten into is the shoes."

Oh Suze, no shoes?!!

I love that Suze has both the pink AND blue Cote D'Azur sets. (Blue is shown here). So do I! My mother taught me long ago that choosing is overrated.