RAPAPORT… Press Release: Reflective Images Inc., an activist designer jewelry manufacturer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has launched www.artisanweddingrings.com. The site offers wedding and engagement rings created by their designers and other small jewelry studios working with 100-percent-recycled precious metal and Fair Trade gemstones.
“Artisanweddingrings has some of the finest ethically produced designer bridal jewelry available,” said Marc Choyt, president of Reflective Images and a Fair Trade jewelry activist. “The site offers the conscious consumer a means to connect directly to diamond beneficiation projects, small-scale gemstone miners and artisan designers.”
At present, the website features more than 5,000 procession photographed rings in numerous styles. Each wedding and engagement ring is offered with its symbolic meaning. Prices for the recycled jewelry start under $200 for handmade sterling designs and extend up to several thousand for platinum rings.
“While other companies offer commercially produced ‘green rings’ and conflict-free jewelry, what makes us different is that even the plain bands are entirely handmade,” said Choyt. “Additional designers from other small studios who share our commitment to ethical sourcing will also be added over the next few months.”
Reflective Images is known for its pioneering efforts in conflict-free jewelry as a manufacturer and for its activism in the Fair Trade, recycled jewelry space. Choyt devotes much of his time to authoring Google’s number one “Fair Trade jewelry” website, http://www.fairjewelry.org, regarded as the most comprehensive trade and consumer resource on Fair Trade jewelry issues.
The Artisanweddingrings site also offers a free consumer ebook, “How To Purchase Ethical Jewelry Now,” which explains how jewelry consumers purchase jewelry and support humanitarian and environmental values. The book also cuts through jewelry marketing spin, debunking specious terms, such as “conflict-free diamonds.” Choyt has also published the “Ethical Jewelry Handbook,” a free resource e-book for jewelers, and he spearheads an international committee that is developing Fair Trade standards for jewelry manufacturing.
Reflective Images, established in 1994, offers the new website as one more socially responsible initiative using recycled jewelry. The company is among the first in the jewelry sector to move its entire U.S. and Fair Trade international production to 100-percent-recycled Fair Trade jewelry. It powers its Santa Fe studio on green energy, purchases carbon offsets and uses compact fluorescent lighting and recycled products. In June 2008, the company was awarded top honors by Santa Fe New Mexico’s Mayor and Chamber of Commerce for its visionary practices in the jewelry sector and exemplary treatment of its employees.
Rapaport News is not responsible for, and does not endorse, the content of any press release. Press releases are not written by us and are provided only as additional information for our clients.