Business and Industry
Costume jewelry is considered a discrete category of fashion accessory, and displays many characteristics of a self-contained industry. Costume jewelry manufacturers are located throughout the world, with a particular concentration in parts of China and India, where entire city-wide and region-wide economies are dominated by the trade of these goods. There has been considerable controversy in the United States and elsewhere about the lack of regulations in the manufacture of such jewelry—these range from human rights issues surrounding the treatment of labor, to the use of manufacturing processes in which small, but potentially harmful, amounts of toxic metals are added during production. In 2010, the Associated Press released the story that toxic levels of the metal cadmium. were found in children's jewelry. An AP investigation found some pieces contained more than 80 percent of cadmium.. The wider issues surrounding imports, exports, trade laws, and globalization also apply to the costume jewelry trade.
As part of the supply chain, wholesalers in the United States and other nations purchase costume jewelry from manufacturers and typically import or export it to wholesale distributors and suppliers who deal directly with retailers. Wholesale costume jewelry merchants would traditionally seek out new suppliers at trade shows. As the Internet has become increasingly important in global trade, the trade-show model has changed. Retailers can now select from a large number of wholesalers with sites on the World Wide Web. Some of these sites also market directly to consumers, who can purchase costume jewelry at greatly reduced prices. Some of these sites include fashion jewelry as a separate category, while some use this term in favor of costume jewelry. The trend of jewelry-making at home by hobbyists for personal enjoyment or for sale on sites like Etsy has resulted in the common practice of buying wholesale costume jewelry in bulk and using it for parts.
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