“The best sorts of customer? The ones who spend the most, of course,” laughs jewellery salesman Roger Moraes, who works at Cara Jewellers in Dubai’s Gold and Diamond Park.
“The celebrities spend the most. But it’s not the celebrities who love the jewellery, it’s their wives. And you know what they say: happy wife, happy life.”
In a country known for its glitz and glamour, it comes as no surprise that the jewellery business in the UAE is booming. And this month sees the start of the busy season – spurred on by an influx of tourists and the beginning of wedding season.
Dubai, in particular, is a massive hub for diamond trading, and home to the Dubai Diamond Exchange, which was set up in 2005 when the emirate’s diamond trade was worth US$5 million (Dh18.4m). In 2011, when the most recent figures were released, it was close to US$40 billion – and that number only takes into account trading between businesses, not necessarily sales to consumers.
Because of its geographical location between the East and the West, Dubai is now one of the top three diamond-trading centres in the world, and many of the stones are shipped out after being traded in the country. There are also a number of rough diamond auctions held in Dubai throughout the year, attracting dealers and suppliers from across the globe.
Only a portion of those sold will end up in one of Dubai’s hundreds of jewellery shops, most of which are in the newer Gold and Diamond Park on Sheikh Zayed Road and Deira’s old Gold Souq.
But while thousands of people will pick their precious stone from a shop window, few of them realise the work that goes into making their item, or that there are few other places in the world where designing a bespoke piece is more affordable – at least, relatively.
Moraes, from India, is one of Cara’s top salesmen. A bubbly character who used to work in event management, he prides himself on making the big sales and schmoozing with the celebrity clientele, who, he says, pay little attention to the craftsmanship of the pieces they buy.
The shop’s wall of fame is covered with photographs of smiling staff standing next to an array of famous faces including the singer Jermaine Jackson, the footballer Gareth Bale and the actress Sharon Stone, as well as the British television stars Holly Willoughby and Jeremy Kyle.
“All of the footballers come here,” Moraes boasts. “And then they send their friends. They will email or text us to tell us they’re coming, and sometimes we send a car to pick them up. They get the VIP treatment. When they come on holiday they always come in, and hopefully spend a lot of money.”
But the picture behind the scenes is very different.
Cara’s workshop is typical of what goes on in hundreds of other workshops around the emirate. In the Deira Gold Souq, the workshops all line the small alleyways behind the main walk. Although smaller than Cara’s, the craftsmanship is no less impressive and remains popular with both tourists and residents alike.
Cara’s jewellery workshop, which is in an adjoining building in the park, is a world away from the main sales shop and its gleaming glass cases that burst with sparkling gems.
With the air conditioning whirring noisily above, more than 20 men, most dressed in identical light-blue shirts, sit hunched over white wooden desks.
The paint-chipped workstations that resemble old school desks are covered with various tools including ring holders, tongs, welding torches and small water bottles that have been filled with chemicals.
There is also a bright spotlight on each desk, under which the men work for 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Once a month they are given a day off.
Nevertheless, according to Chandan Guria, one of the senior workers, they are happy in their roles.
“We are all from Kolkata; this is where the best artisans are from. Our ancestors were making jewellery there, it is now a common trade. We are the best at making jewellery now. It is a good job for us.”
Guria, 30, a father of one, has worked in the Cara factory for five years after moving to Dubai from Mumbai, where he learnt the trade of jewellery making for eight years.
His three brothers are in the same profession.
“In Kolkata, you know you have learnt all the things, all the skills. Nobody can do this apart from people from there.”
The actual process of making jewellery is far from glamorous. It involves a series of wax mouldings, rubber impressions, ovens, jet-powered water sprays and plenty of plaster of Paris.
The most common pieces made in the factory are rings. The display items in the shop can be replicated to match a customer’s size, or a piece can be designed from scratch. The customer can even have a copy reproduced of something seen elsewhere.
To begin the process, Guria must first use a rubber moulding to create a sort of template of the ring. There may be 20 different mouldings for one simple solitaire ring design, for example, each one in a different ring size.
If a buyer wants something custom-made, such as a copy from a photograph or a design to fit a specific stone, one of the workers will carve the ring out of a solid lump of hard green wax.
The rubber mouldings, which are about the length and width of a credit card but much thicker, are split into two halves which, when stuck together, leave only the ring shape hollowed out of the middle.
A blue or red wax is then squirted into the gap to make the template. Once cool, the wax ring is pinned to what is known as a “tree”. One tree can hold approximately 50 rings at a time. The tree is covered with a holed tube and filled with plaster of Paris. When dried, the tree is put into an oven, where the wax melts and drips out of a small hole in the bottom. This leaves a plaster of Paris moulding with tens of ring designs hollowed out in the middle.
Into this is poured the liquid metal. It fills the holes and eventually cools, at which point the plaster of Paris is washed off with a jet spray.
“And then we have the rings,” says Guria. “It is an easy job, if you know how to do it.” The tree he is building at the moment will contain 32 rings, and they are all for one customer.
Generally the men are not told anything about the individual client, unless they come into the factory to see their jewellery being made.
Jameel Alhoush, 28, has done just that. The Syrian national is waiting for a wedding ring to be made, which is a replica based on a ring of his father’s, before he flies off to the Netherlands for his wedding.
“I don’t think people have any idea how their rings are made. I’ve seen a couple of really complicated pieces done in an amazing way. The men are really skilled, but I think a lot of customers imagine the jewellery is made by machines like everything else.” Most of the men are trained in different skill areas, and one piece of jewellery may pass through five or six pairs of hands before being delivered to the customer.
One of the men, who sits bent over his desk, is using a small rotary power tool to create a golf ball-sized hollow mould.
Taking his eyes off the waxing for just a few seconds, he says the ball, made up of two hemispheres that will later be melted together, is for a pendant. It will be covered in 15 carats worth of tiny diamonds.
Karamaka Prasanjit, 27, is another of the workers from Kolkata, who started working at the factory three years ago.
He prides himself as being an “all-rounder” who can size and affix diamonds into an incredible 200 ring settings in a day.
“If they are solitaire rings for engagement or wedding, which we do a lot of in this season, I can do 200. If they are complicated, I can do 50 or 60.”
Security in the factory is tight. There are about a dozen cameras on the ceiling that cover every foot of the room, and every piece of metal or stone is counted in and out of the building.
Even the so-called gold dust is precious. At the workstations where the finishing touches are made – such as a final filing of a ring – there are small pots to gather the shavings.
And just to make sure every last speck is collected, there is a vibrating floor mat at the entrance to the warehouse. When pressure is applied to it, small bristles spike up to brush off any flecks that might be caught on the soles of shoes.
Despite its name, the dust resembles sweepings from any floor, but with a slight sparkle if one looks very closely under a bright light. The rest is fluff, tiny bits of scrap metal and other rubbish that will be thrown away.
But looks can be deceiving, Chandan says. “We collect a minimum of two kilograms of gold every month from the gold dust.
“We melt it down, and all the dust accumulates in one place and the gold in another. After a month we melt it and make gold bars. They keep a record of the amounts collected. Every bit counts.”
munderwood@thenational.ae
