Jewellery, the shadow of global tensions extends over supply chain and consumption

We anticipate an excerpt from the article that will open the Jewellery Special, on newsstands tomorrow 19 May as a supplement to Il Sole 24 Ore, 25 pages of analysis, in-depth analysis, news from companies and product novelties.

Where 9/11 and seven years after the Lehman Brothers collapse of 2008 failed, and where the bird flu epidemics in Asia and, going even further back in time, the geopolitical crises of the 1970s and 1980s failed, perhaps the current downward spiral into which the entire globalised world seems to have slipped - in fact - because of the war scenarios in the Middle East, could succeed. This is the first time that exogenous and unpredictable factors, what some economists and analysts call black swans, also seem to have an effect on the jewellery industry. Perhaps because the crisis triggered by the US and Israel's attack on Iran on 28 February, followed by the attack on Lebanon and with the Gaza Strip captive in the aftermath of the war triggered by Hamas terrorist attacks on 7 October 2023, is not only about consumer confidence and the growing fears that linger in each of us as we watch the planet in flames. The hotbeds of war are, in fact, blazing on every continent, including Europe, and no one - least of all the younger generations - can look to the future with optimism, because none of the most recent crises is close to a solution.

This time, however, it is not only the collapse of confidence and the fear of living in a world that seems to have interrupted the path of civilisation and coexistence between peoples, ideas, cultures and countries that is having a negative impact on jewellery purchases; the web composed of global supply chains, at the basis of which are energy sources, has never been so fragile.

The consequences of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the destruction of refining plants and the damage to other infrastructures that enable the transport of gas and all oil derivatives, also impact the movement of raw materials that form the basis of the global jewellery industry, from the extraction of precious stones and metals to their transport and processing.

The data presented on 9 May at the OroArezzo conference 'Geopolitical Tensions, Conflicts and Tariffs: the Reactions of the Italian Gold Sector', organised by Club degli Orafi Italia and Intesa Sanpaolo, confirm that 2026 is a blacker swan than usual. Geopolitical uncertainty, international tensions and the instability of American trade policies have pushed the price of gold towards significant increases (+44% in 2025) and continuous all-time highs with an average quotation that in the first quarter of 2026 stood at USD 4,877 an ounce. Hence the drop in world demand for jewellery, conditioned by the evolution of raw material prices: in 2025 there was a drop in quantity of 18%, even more severe in the first quarter of 2026 (-24% with peaks of -44% in the United States).