TLDR: Great news! Everything you’ve bought from us in the past is now worth more! Bad news: we have to raise our prices to keep up with exponentially rising material costs.
What the hell is happening to gold and silver? I won’t pretend to understand the nuances of the global financial system, but I can tell you what it means for independent fine jewelry companies like Yū|Mono.
Like many jewelers, I’ve watched in horror as gold prices (and more recently, silver) have reached previously unimaginable heights, with no sign of slowing down. We work primarily with 14k gold, so our business is inextricably tied to the price of gold. For reference, when we began working with solid gold in 2017, the price was $1200/oz. In the last few days, gold surpassed $5500/oz, rising 64% in the last 6 months alone. While gold has dropped in recent days, it’s expected to continue rising.
Although I’ve had to reprice my collection periodically over the years, what we’re experiencing now is far from normal. To be honest, I’m worried about what the future will look like for small companies like us. We can’t afford to buy gold in bulk like large mass producers, and we don’t always have the same flexibility in our margins to account for volatile fluctuations in material costs.
We had begun to incrementally cut our margins over the past year to absorb most of the rising costs and avoid shocking our customers with massive price changes. But that isn’t a sustainable long-term strategy. We now have no choice but to raise our prices to keep up with rising material costs. It doesn’t feel great–in fact, it feels awful–but it’s the only way we can stay alive.
What I do know is this:
Fine jewelry is a luxury good, not a necessity. I’ve always understood and appreciated that you don’t need to buy something from Yū|Mono, you are choosing Yū|Mono. Many of us are feeling the pinch of this new financial reality, and I appreciate that when you do buy from us, you’ve likely put a lot of thought into this purchase. You might be investing in a meaningful gift, marking an important milestone, or finally treating yourself to something you’ve had your eye on for a while. We do not take for granted that the tiny diamond earrings that once felt like an exciting impulse buy might become a more special, intentional purchase. We expect this to be especially true as we introduce larger, higher-priced pieces like rings later this spring.
My promise to you is that we will meet your careful consideration with the quality, care, and attention to detail that we’ve built our reputation on. We will continue to create meaningful pieces that you can invest in, feel good about, and pass down to future generations.
As a closing note, I want to acknowledge that there are many things in this world more important than jewelry. What I do hope to offer is the comfort and positivity that creativity can cultivate in times of uncertainty, and to bring a little sparkle to your day whenever you decide to wear one of our pieces.
We aim to reprice our current collection by the end of February (after you’ve secured your Valentine’s gifts!), and will keep our current pricing until then.
We are undergoing a full audit of our entire collection, but we anticipate that the repricing will mainly impact older styles. Off the top of my head, Fūrin Studs, Dot Claws and Linear Claws will definitely be repriced, as these are a few of the pieces that we held off from repricing previously. We may also discontinue a few less popular styles. I'll be working closely with our manufacturing team and crunching numbers all month long to make sure we can continue to make ends meet while only raising prices where we have to.
Thank you for choosing Yū|Mono.