Company Q&A: Domino

Tell us about the history of Domino Domino is part of WB The Creative Jewellery Group which also includes the casting, 3D printing and bespoke manufacturing company Weston Beamor, and the fashion, silver and gold jewellery company Gecko. Although the group dates back to 1947, Domino was created in the 1980’s initially to offer retailers semi-finished fine jewellery components. However in recent years it has dramatically expanded its product range and now offers retailers a huge choice of both finished and semi-finished fine jewellery in platinum and 18ct gold. The vast majority of our products are proudly created and crafted here in the UK. What services do you provide for the jewellery retailer? Domino works extremely closely with its customers to provide not only top quality jewellery but also great service. We pride ourselves on offering fast delivery times, a continually updated and - as a member of the RJC - a strongly ethical range of products. We were also an early adopter of Fairtrade gold. Importantly all our products are backed by consumer-facing marketing materials - brochures and POS materials which are available to retailers for their own promotional purposes. What styles of jewellery do you sell? Our major selling point is ‘choice’ - all designs are available in a range of alloys, band widths and various carat weights to offer retailers and their customers the choice to have the jewellery they want at a price they can afford. We are truly a one-stop-shop for retailers as our products cover everything from a huge range of semi-finished components - offered through the Domino Handbook - through to fully-finished suites of diamond jewellery including earrings, bracelets and statement neckwear in our Rosabella Collection. Wedding jewellery, both wedding bands and engagement rings, is a huge and growing part of our business and our ‘Bridal Package’ introduced last year has been a great success. What kinds of volumes are you shifting? Domino is one of the UK’s largest fine-jewellery manufacturers and annually we sell in excess of 400 kilos of platinum and 550 kilos of gold. Tell us about the design process. We employ a team of award-winning designers who work in-house to create ranges of jewellery which are unique to Domino. Each of our collections has its own design signature and the designers make sure that these are kept fresh by injecting new pieces to reflect the contemporary zeitgeist. Is Domino's jewellery manufactured in the UK? The vast majority of Domino’s jewellery is created at our headquarters in Birmingham. It has always been our policy to invest heavily in new technologies and we were amongst the first British company to introduce CAD/CAM into our production line. The ‘Wedding Ring Cell’ - our most recent investment - won an award last year from the Engineering Employers’ Federation for its innovation and the very real benefits it has brought to the business and to our customers. You recently launched 'platinum gold', could you tell us about that? This is something we are extremely excited about. Platinum gold is an alloy which has been developed in Germany and which uses gold, rather than other platinum group metals, to create an alloy with 97.3% precious metal content. This is harder than other platinum alloys but has excellent malleability which allows for increasingly creative designs with intricate details. It is also brilliantly white, very luxurious in feel and exclusive to Domino in the UK. We have done extensive manufacturing trials and are now using this metal as standard for platinum orders across our wedding ring collection. How many UK jewellery retailers are you working with? We currently have a few thousand active accounts both in the UK and overseas. What's on-trend right now? White on white remains the most popular choice across our ranges; however we are seeing increased demand for bi-metal pieces with rose and yellow gold being used to add decorative touches. Floral and botanical details are popular across our wedding and engagement rings, as well as bridal accessories. What's next for Domino? Spring Fair will see the launch of our brand new and much expanded wedding ring collection. This is backed by a complete package of marketing materials including a new brochure, POS materials and a stylish wedding-ring box. Products include classic bands across a range of profiles and band-widths; stone-set bands encompassing some new edge-set designs with single and double rows of stones; many popular vintage styles, creative signets and wider creatively-shaped bands. This feature first appeared in the January 2017 issue of jewellery Focus