Paola De Luca
Paola De Luca (born 18 November 1966) is an Italian luxury trends forecaster, best known for developing a Trend Book predicting global jewellery design trends, and began her career as a jewellery designer. More recently, she has worked as Design Director of Rio Tinto Diamonds since 2010. De Luca is the founder of The Futurist Ltd, a research and creative intelligence company that carries out projects for clients in the global luxury sector. De Luca leads design projects and educational programmes for buyers and government organisations, and gives seminars forecasting global jewellery design trends at international trade  fairs. She was a pioneer in the field of jewellery design trend forecasting reports, which she started as in-house research while working for UnoAErre, a leading Italian goldsmith and manufacturer. De Luca studied goldsmithing, metalwork, fashion and arts design in Rome before moving to New York City in her early 20s where she worked as a fashion and design director for UnoAErre and for brands such as Fendi. Early career. De Luca traces her roots as a jewellery designer to her upbringing and education in Rome. As a teenager, after school she would wander round the Via Condotti neighbourhood , fascinated by the latest fashions and accessories on display in the shop windows of Rome’s fashion district near the Spanish Steps. Recent career. De Luca established TJF Group Ltd, a research company mainly focused on global jewellery design trends, in partnership with CRU Group of London, in 2002. For a decade TJF Group focused on research into jewellery branding and design trends, and published TJF Magazine, a glossy print periodical distributed to the international jewellery trade. TJF Group launched the "TJF Trend Book", one of the world's first authoritative jewellery trends publications which forecast global design themes up  to two seasons into the future, based on extensive industry research.