Gems TV to expand offer with young designers and celebrity range

Gems TV is planning to expand its offer by bringing in up-and-coming British jewellery designers, creating a celebrity design partnership and expanding its non-jewellery offer. The retailer said it hopes to attract new customers through the initiatives.

Gems TV operations director Vanessa Gillgrass said the TV shopping channel wants to work with young designers fresh out of college and help to establish their careers while bringing a fresh offer to its audience. “We’re looking to find some homegrown British design talent,” she said.

Gillgrass said that Gems TV is also mulling the possibility of working with a celebrity designer, but that the project is at the very early stages of development and the retailer has not initiated talks with any celebrities about designing for the channel. She said: “You see Zandra Rhodes designing for Marks & Spencer and Paloma Picasso designing for Tiffany & Co. – why can’t we have someone as good as that designing for us?”

Gems TV is also planning to increase its non-jewellery offer, such as giftware and collectables, but maintains that its core business will always be jewellery. Gillgrass insisted that the channel will not revert to the variety selling style it employed as Snatch It, the name of the channel before it rebranded as Gems TV in 2004 and focused solely on jewellery sales.

For more on TV shopping channels, see our feature in the July issue out soon

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