This, says Peter Lim, 52, managing director of Soo Kee Jewellers Group, is part of the rationale behind SK Jewellery's latest 999 Pure Gold Jewellery Collection.
Having invested $20 million into the 999 line so far, its first bridal collection hopes to bring tradition back in style by working the stalwart precious metal into modern designs for Chinese brides today.
Much in the same way, Mr Lim invokes the past in an interview with BT when speaking about his journey as an entrepreneur.
Few would have known that he began by running a sundry store, then a photocopying business and a photo-finishing franchise, before finally entering the jewellery industry in 1991.
Disparate as they appear, these were all stages in his journey as an entrepreneur from the 1960s till today.
He recalls when he used to manage a humble family business in Joo Chiat after his father, who originally opened the shop, passed away.
Life was tough, he says in Mandarin.
"We only had one-and-a-half days off - the first day of Chinese New Year and half of the second."
Thankfully for Mr Lim, he was soon visited by what he describes as a personal "industrial revolution".
He embraced the use of machinery and ran his own photocopying business in the 1980s before intellectual property concerns started to worry him.
Subsequently, he transformed the business once again into a more profitable photo-finishing chain as a franchisee of Japanese giants Fujifilm.
By 1991, he found himself restricted again, this time by the regulations implemented by Fujifilm on its franchisees and resolved to start anew.
Opening a jewellery shop came as a natural choice for Mr Lim, who was greatly inspired by his late father.
"My father always wanted to open a goldsmith shop, he used to call them the 'King of Retail Shops'," he said.
"We named Soo Kee after him, as a tribute."
Furthermore, it is a belief shared by both father and son that unlike clothes, which run out of style, gold will never go out of date.
The first ever Soo Kee jewellery store was opened in Bedok Central, Mr Lim's old haunt and the location of his most successful shops in the past.
He remembers the opening of the inaugural store fondly, recalling how actor Li Nanxing turned up to lend his support on the big day.
Mr Lim credits his time running the chain of photo-finishing stores under Fujifilm for honing his business acumen.
From there, he learned how to manage multiple outlets as well as marketing and promotion strategies that would help Soo Kee greatly later on.
Till today, Soo Kee still bears the legacy of Mr Lim's earlier business ventures.
The management strategies behind running numerous chain stores is an obvious one, while Soo Kee's trademark staff uniform is another lesson he learned from Fujifilm and implemented.
As a businessman, research and development is high on Mr Lim's list of priorities.
He takes pride in the fact that Soo Kee has numerous designs that are created by craftsmen in-house, having learnt the precise techniques from their counterparts in the West.
IE Singapore's Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) scheme has been particularly helpful in advancing Soo Kee's design plans, says Mr Lim, by assisting in the company's design creation in development.
More than 1,000 designs have been created so far. In fact, the 999 bridal collection features various works created by Soo Kee designers themselves.
Maximising productivity is also a key goal for Soo Kee. "The main challenges we have faced are the increase in rentals," says Mr Lim. As such, he tackles this problem by working to raise his workers' productivity, so as to increase their contribution per square foot and offset the higher costs.
Interestingly, he actually accomplishes this by increasing the salaries of his workers. Although this might seem as a contradictory method at first, he is adamant that this is the best way to go.
"To increase business, we must increase salaries. This way, we can retain competitiveness, retain talent, and raise productivity," says Mr Lim. Besides this, he encourages his employees to work overtime if they are willing and hires older workers who he says are more "mature" and "reliable".
Expansion ranks highly in Mr Lim's plans for Soo Kee. He hopes to do so not only geographically - in the form of overseas branches in countries like Malaysia and China - but also in the form of reaching out to a broader consumer base through its more-affordable "masstige" SK Jewellery line.
"We believe that jewellery is not just for tai tais," says Mr Lim candidly.
"With the SK line, jewellery can become affordable and for people to wear everyday." This concept, he believes, is exemplified though the SK line, whereby "masstige" is a portmanteau between mass market and prestige.
As for the future, Mr Lim hopes that the new range of 999 pure gold jewellery will breathe new life into people's perception of the metal.
He aims for the line to eventually branch out from the bridal market into the "full product spectra" with a new collection to be released within the next half year.
"Parents pass on their gold to their children as a blessing in traditional culture," says Mr Lim. "We hope to give gold a double purpose and a new life."
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