Editor’s Note
As gold prices reach historic highs, the world’s premier jewelry maisons demonstrate that creativity and heritage remain the most valuable assets.
Gold surging beyond $5,100 an ounce for the first time in January left a chill for most, but the high jewelry scene remained as effervescent as ever.
While a number of big players have now moved their major launches to the spring — and splashy destination locales — Place Vendôme cornerstones and newer signatures made good use of the moment to showcase storied pasts, creative chops and new ways of working.
Houses such as Boucheron and Chaumet gave new incarnations to elements mined from their deep archives, whether a signature motif or even a historic address. Bulgari pushed its definition of precious by highlighting precious clutches. Others including Messika, Repossi and Graff, dovetailing their high jewelry with a broader selection of their offerings.
With reason: the already flourishing sector shows no signs of flagging.
Already a shock absorber in a difficult market, jewelry is set to continue growing with a high single-digit compound annual growth rate over the years to 2030. Its status was made even more compelling across price segments by precious metal content, creative value, and the aura of the brands.
Prospects are further reinforced by the prospect of a K-shaped economy, a widening of income and wealth inequality that was described by Bernstein analyst Luca Solca in a recent research note.
This ongoing interest in jewelry as a top-performing category is changing the face of a period that traditionally has been devoted to its uber-luxe segment. As the price gap between fine offerings and high jewelry shrinks, January is now a wide-open playground and jewelers are comfortable stretching collections across price points.
Take Patcharavipa Bodiratnangkura. Her fine jewelry line’s latest collection played with rare natural woods such as thuya from Morocco, South American snakewood, or white oak hailing from Thailand, paired with 18-karat gold and diamonds.
Patacharvipa pieces set with stones well under 0.5 carat cost between 2,600 and 5,500 euros, but swap the center stone for a 10-carat princess-cut and the price tag leapt north of 520,000 euros.
Also straddling that boundary was third-generation diamantaire Sahag Arslanian. At his new boutique on Avenue Matignon, he showed rows of diamonds going from lightest pink to vibrant peach, or the faintest blue to stronger hues.
So instead of facing a $7 million price tag for an 8-carat fancy intense purple-pink diamond, his client could have a 0.6-carat stone for a mid-five-figure sum as a pendant or quotidian ring.
For Valérie Messika, couture week is when her retail partners traditionally come to discover her brand’s latest fine jewelry lines. New this year was the genderless Moderniste collection, playing on faceted planes in polished and brushed gold, gem-set or not.
It was also the first time she unveiled four sets continuing her “Terres d’Instinct” high jewelry collection — themes are teased in July and fully unfurled with runway shows during October’s Paris Fashion Weeks.
While clients angling for the most rarefied pieces show no signs of flagging interest, Messika described the skyrocketing price of gold as “a catastrophe.”
Skyrocketing precious metal prices have “strangely had a beneficial effect,” said Sarah Madeleine Bru, whose Paris- and London-based jewelry business evolved toward a greater emphasis on bespoke work in the past year, with five-figure orders trickling in.
That said, she has to navigate carefully given daily hikes in precious metal prices, with white gold and platinum now neck-and-neck.
Ensuring clients can soften the blow is what motivated Loyal.e founder Maïssa Zard to introduce a gold buy-back program in January, an idea that sprang from her rediscovery of long-forgotten childhood and teenage jewelry.