JIC Announces 2012 Gem Awards Honorees

(IDEX Online News) – Jewelry Information Center (JIC), the consumer education arm of Jewelers of America (JA), yesterday (Wednesday) announced the four honorees of its Tenth Annual Gem Awards.

The recipients are: Ralph Destino, who will receive a GEM Award for Lifetime Achievement; Candy Pratts Price, who will be awarded the GEM Award for Journalistic Excellence and the Honorable Daphne Guinness, who receives the GEM Award for Jewelry Style. Chanel Fine Jewelry is to be given the GEM Award for Corporate Communications.

Ralph Destino was chair of Jewelry Information Center during the event’s inception stages in 2001. He is chair-emeritus of Cartier, Inc. after a 32-year career with the Cartier Group that included serving as president and CEO of Cartier (Far East) Ltd. as well as president and chair of Cartier (USA) Inc. He is also chair-emeritus of the Gemological Institute of America (GIA).

Currently, Destino acts as an industry consultant in New York and is a director of Van Cleef & Arpels, Inc. He also chairs the American Watch Guild, the Editorial Advisory Board of National Jeweler magazine and the Jewelers for Veterans Foundation. He is also a former director of JA and the Jewelers Vigilance Committee (JVC).

Candy Pratts Price is editor-at-large of Vogue.com and will be awarded with the GEM Award for Journalistic Excellence for her body of work as a journalist dedicated to covering the fine jewelry and watch category.

With more than two decades in journalism, retail, fashion, film and television, she has worked at Bloomingdale’s, as fashion director for Harper’s Bazaar and as accessories director at Vogue. From 1999, she was the creative director of the nationally televised VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards, where she conceived and directed the program’s entire fashion content. Later, she joined Ralph Lauren as creative director before returning to Condé Nast in 2001 to become executive fashion director of Style.com.

The Honorable Daphne Guinness has been a designer, a stylist, a writer, a filmmaker, performer, a collector and perfumer, all the while led by her unique eye and singular creative vision.

The awards are set to kick off a celebratory year for Chanel Fine Jewelry, as 2012 marks the 80th anniversary of the creation of Chanel Joaillerie by its founder Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel in November of 1932.

The Tenth Annual GEM Awards will be held on Friday, January 6, 2012, at Cipriani 42nd Street, New York.