Tiffany is more than irked at Costco for selling diamond engagement rings as "Tiffany" rings. The luxury jeweler last week formally filed suit against the wholesale retail giant.

Costco CEO Craig Jelinek commented in an internal email communication that was sent to all employees this evening [Feb. 18, 8:27 pm EST], "We are disappointed that our efforts to resolve the issue with them did not result in an amicable solution as we had hoped."

Jelinek also acknowledged that the retailer erred by using the word "Tiffany" in describing the engagement rings:

"That was intended to describe a setting style used in those rings, and was not intended to claim that the rings were of any particular brand. In retrospect, it would have been better had we not used that description the way we did."

Below, read Costco's company-wide email:Continue reading...

Costco isn’t the first brand name to pop-up when consumers are looking for high-end luxury, but a few folks thought they had found it there when they came across low-cost Tiffany diamond engagement rings. (And they didn’t even have to buy them in bulk.) 

Unfortunately for all those customers, the rings weren’t quite the real thing. Now, Tiffany is taking Costco to court for marketing some high-end jewelry in the past few years under its brand, without permission.

“We now know that there are hundreds if not thousands of Costco members who think they bought a Tiffany engagement ring at Costco, which they didn’t,” Jeffrey Mitchell, a lawyer for Tiffany, said in a statement to Bloomberg News. “Costco knew what it was doing when it used the Tiffany trademark to sell rings that had nothing to do with Tiffany.” The company's press release says it was tipped off by a California customer in November of the alleged scam. 

This isn’t the first time Tiffany has had trouble with a low-cost seller. It battled with Overstock.com back in 2010, which had sold 1,365 pendants under the Tiffany name. It also had legal battles with eBay, claiming that the online seller was at fault for allowing some of its vendors to sell counterfeit Tiffany items, but the court never agreed with Tiffany on that one.

Tiffany seems to have a better case against Costco, which legally sells high-end jewelry brands such as Cartier, Breitling, and Chanel — not to mention other luxury brands such as Coach, Burberry and Mercedes-Benz — at select locations, such as Boca Raton, of course.

Swatch Group's new year surprise — that it's paying $1 billion to acquire the luxury unit of Harry Winston Diamond Corp. — is making observers beyond the jewelry business watch both brands more closely.

Canada's Harry Winston Diamond Corp.’s $1 billion sale ($750 million plus $250 million in debt) of its luxury business to Switzerland's Swatch Group AG provides the cash for Winston to invest more in diamond mining, a business that last year was more than twice as profitable as jewelry.

Shares in Toronto-based Harry Winston rose 4.4 percent on Monday after the deal was announced. The high-end company's chairman and CEO, Robert Gannicott, told The Globe and Mail that the company planning will use the cash to focus primarily on mining after eight years as a luxury jewelry brand. His plan: purchase the 60 percent stake of the Diavik mine it doesn’t already own from Rio Tinto Group.

In addition to Winston exiting the luxe jewelry-selling business, the deal will have an impact on Swatch Group's (relatively) cheap and cheerful Swatch brand.Continue reading...

Nespresso has been riding the home barista trend, as consumers and gift-givers shelled out about $600 for counter-top coffee makers this holiday season.

But what to do with those crushed capsules? One enterprising idea is seeing them used as the basis for a handmade, custom timepiece as part of the Grand Cru collection produced by high-end watchmaker Blancier. At least you'll always know when it's time for a coffee.

it may sound crazy, but the idea didn’t come from an overly caffeinated designer at the German-owned Blancier, which specializes in customized watchmaking and has offered weekend DIY workshops. In fact, it was Blancier co-owner Willem Kamerman who thought of the idea while standing in line at a Nespresso boutique, according to Watchpro.

"We don't reuse the cups; we turn the waste into something more attractive and valuable,” Kamerman commented. “We move up the chain. Every time you look at the watch you're made aware that you don't have to throw everything away."Continue reading...

Cartier's panther is back — 16 million views (for "L'Odyssée de Cartier") later — for the luxury brand's holiday campaign.

President Obama's "Four more years" victory tweet has become the most retweeted tweet in the history of tweets (sorry, Bieber). Attached to Obama's historic tweet, a photo of the First Lady, arms thrown around the president, who wears rolled-up sleeves and a wristwatch. But what watch?Continue reading...

For more than 130 years, Seiko has been helping people across the globe get to meetings, dates, and other social engagements on time. And like all watch-makers these days, the challenge is to get people to wear their brands when we're so used to glancing at our phones for a time check.

For such a basic accoutrement, Seiko has aways aimed to innovate. The company lays claim to a number of firsts: the first quartz watch, the first multifunction digital watch, the first TV watch, the first watch with sound-recording functions, and the world’s first watch driven by body heat. They even just churned out the first solar-powered watch that can set its own time via GPS so anybody who travels a lot won’t have to keep resetting it.

All of these innovations have been housed in a wide variety of designs. Now the Seiko brand is turning to New York City to inspire its latest line, the XNY, which is being sold exclusively at Macy’s. According to a press release, the XNY “watches reflect the youthful energy, artistic diversity and powerful strength of New York City.”

Naturally, any New York-inspired timepiece would come in black.Continue reading...

Tiffany celebrates its 175th anniversary today, opening its doors on Sept. 14, 1837. Fans are posting congrats on the brand's Facebook page — with some celebrating by buying a bauble or two from its 1837 anniversary collection and special edition Rubedo rose-gold jewelry, and others lusting after "the one and only" yellow Tiffany diamond, all 128.54 carats, re-set for its 175th anniversary.Continue reading...