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The overlap between luxury jewellery and contemporary art is attracting adventurous customers who are encouraging brands to push the creative envelope in search of eye-catching innovation.
“There are different types of high jewellery customers,” Hélène Poulit-Duquesne, CEO of Boucheron, explains, speaking to Vogue Business on the eve of a new collection launch during Paris couture week. “There are clients who have a real vision of traditional high jewellery as an investment and therefore want precious stones. And, there are more and more clients who are getting into high jewellery like you get into contemporary art.”
Boucheron’s new More is More collection uses (for the first time) magnesium — a material 30 per cent lighter than aluminium and ten times less dense than gold. It’s the latest launch demonstrating the innovation that has become integral to Boucheron’s business. A collection titled Contemplation, launched in 2020, used an aerogel technology more typically associated with Nasa. A capsule collection in 2022 used Cofalit, a material produced from asbestos, transforming the hazardous substance into a safe material.
For the new collection, creative director Claire Choisne worked with magnesium for an outsized bow for the hair, weighing only 94 grams. The piece also includes bio acetate made of wood paste and cotton fibres, a favourite of eyewear manufacturers.
The name of the More is More collection is also reflected in some bravura pieces, including a trompe-l’oeil necklace with a cartoonish aesthetic that covers the wearer’s chest, composed of titanium and white gold and paved with diamonds.
“Innovation has always been part of the DNA of the house,” says Poulit-Duquesne, who has been CEO since 2015. “The Question Mark necklace in 1879 won every prize at the World’s fair. Frédéric Boucheron had the reputation of being the most innovative jeweller technically on Place Vendôme. Claire Choisne and I are passionate about innovation. I think it’s one of the fundamental things that sets us apart.”
She admits that the brand’s commercial team initially queried the emphasis on extreme innovation. Would they be able to sell the most creative pieces? “One day I called a meeting and said that we’ll have one collection in January, telling the story of our heritage with Claire’s contemporary eye, and then we’ll have a collection in July, where I give her total carte blanche, where I push her in her creativity. I told the commercial team: ‘If you don’t sell any pieces of this collection, that’s OK. On the other hand, for our image, our positioning, our differentiation, it’s essential.’” The full collection using the aerogel technology was sold, and last year’s high jewellery collection Ailleurs (featuring rattan) also sold very well, Poulit-Duquesne says.
Firm, steady growth
While Boucheron parent Kering does not provide sales figures for individual brands in its Other Houses division, its 2022 annual earnings release said that Kering’s jewellery houses “once again achieved outstanding progress and reached significant milestones” and Boucheron posted “firm, steady growth”. (Kering’s other jewellery brands are Pomellato, Dodo and Qeelin.) Boucheron sales were approximately €380 million in 2022, making it the 10th largest jeweller, according to estimates by Edouard Aubin, head of luxury and sporting goods equity research at Morgan Stanley.
Growth is led by China, Japan and the Middle East, says Poulit-Duquesne. The brand is to open a new four-floor flagship store in Ginza, Tokyo, in September. It will be Boucheron’s largest store after the Place Vendôme historic flagship. A first store stateside is planned for 2024, a big step up from the existing corners in wholesale at Saks Fifth and Neiman Marcus. “We are just at the beginning for the US,” Poulit-Duquesne says. Growth is also led by the house’s iconic Quatre collection, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2024. “High jewellery has a halo effect on all the collections, it’s very important for the positioning of the house and its creativity, but to walk on two legs and grow, a jeweller needs an icon,” Poulit-Duquesne says.
Meanwhile, the craft involved in creating the More is More collection is celebrated in a 52-minute documentary by Olivier Nicklaus, titled Pushing the Limits, that goes behind the scenes of Boucheron, being screened privately on 3 July at Théâtre Lepic in Paris.
Kering chief Francois-Henri Pinault is fully supportive of the Boucheron team’s enthusiasm for innovation, says Poulit-Duquesne.
Poulit-Duquesne notes how Boucheron has benefitted from being part of Kering, which owns Gucci. Kering, then the Gucci Group, bought Boucheron in 2000 from Schweizerhall. “The fact that we are in a group that has fashion houses has opened my chakras,” she says, laughing. “[By contrast], my first collection with Claire — in 2016 — was very classic.”
Correction: Removes inaccurate detail regarding the Boucheron documentary. (1 July 2023)
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