Editor’s Note
This article highlights the recognition of Chow Tai Fook Jewellery’s president at the September Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Fair, part of the event’s 40th-anniversary celebrations honoring industry leaders.
The September Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Fair was grandly held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of this major industry event, the organizers, after extensive industry screening, presented the Jewellery World Awards ‘Extraordinary 40’ honors to 40 global industry leaders in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the jewellery sector. As the president of a brand that has brought Chinese jewellery to the global retail market, Mr. Liao Chuangbin, President of Chow Tai Fook Jewellery, was awarded the ‘Extraordinary 40’ honor for his exceptional contributions to the industry.
This honor also recognizes Chow Tai Fook’s consistent adherence to its original aspirations. Since its establishment in 1997, the brand has taken “promoting Eastern culture” as its mission, upholding the belief of “revitalizing traditional culture through fashion,” and is committed to creating jewellery for every woman that combines fashionable design with exquisite craftsmanship. Along the journey, opportunities and challenges coexisted. From the first store to 1,000 stores, becoming the first fashion jewellery IPO listed company on China’s A-share market, leading Chinese jewellery design trends with original designs, and becoming a leading fashion jewellery brand originating from the East. All of this stems from the founder’s cultural sentiment and is inseparable from the brand’s decades-long persistence.
If Eastern culture is the foundation of Chow Tai Fook, then original design is the soul of the brand. For Chow Tai Fook, original design encompasses two important connotations: first, finding inspiration from the profound foundation of Eastern culture; second, maintaining the uniqueness of its own brand, which is also the core driving force for promoting the development of the jewellery industry.
In 1999, just three years after its founding, Chow Tai Fook invested a year’s profit to co-organize China’s first Jewellery Design Awards with institutions like the China Gems & Jewellery Trade Association, unveiling the curtain on original jewellery design in mainland China.
In 2006, on the tenth anniversary of Chow Tai Fook’s founding, it was invited to participate in the Baselworld Watch and Jewellery Show in Switzerland, becoming the first Asian jewellery brand to step onto the stage of the world’s top fashion jewellery exhibition. It presented an Eastern jewellery show titled ‘Auspicious Clouds from the East,’ which became a significant opportunity for Chow Tai Fook to gain international reputation.
Adhering firmly to the original intention of originality and using Eastern design language to break through in the highly homogenized domestic jewellery market, standing at an unprecedented new height for Chinese jewellery brands, Liao Chuangbin remains exceptionally calm and clear-headed. He深知 that seeking creative inspiration from folk traditional skills surpasses any empty design that is overly ambitious.
Spending over a decade, Chow Tai Fook established a非遗 Filigree Inlay Workshop, inviting非遗 master craftsmen to come out of retirement to teach apprentices, nurturing dozens of young artisans for the濒临失传 filigree inlay craft. From its establishment to the present, Chow Tai Fook has always insisted on taking inheritance as the core and craftsmanship as the foundation, integrating traditional Chinese handicrafts with diversified modern aesthetics to create fashionable Eastern jewellery that符合时代审美.
Introducing international cutting-edge techniques, continuously updating and iterating the production and R&D capabilities of Chow Tai Fook’s own factories. Chow Tai Fook has currently obtained over 40 process invention patents and utility model patents from national intellectual property offices, becoming the brand’s technical capital.
Taking the promotion of Eastern culture as its mission, inheriting and innovating traditional Chinese culture. To protect China’s traditional intangible cultural heritage crafts, we spent over a decade preparing and building the Chow Tai Fook Zhenbao Jewellery Museum, which houses over 3,000 exquisite pieces. Using非遗 culture as the creative and research foundation, we invite famous masters to co-create ‘New非遗,’ bringing全新的视觉审美 to traditional handicrafts with new design perspectives.
What is national is also global. Chinese非遗 is not only a treasure of national culture but also a common wealth of the world. While internally dedicating efforts to creating and inheriting非遗 and crafting Eastern jewellery with ethnic characteristics, Chow Tai Fook is also seeking good opportunities to promote非遗 to the world. Chow Tai Fook collaborates with innovative公益 organizations, making many innovations and attempts for the overseas exchange of非遗 filigree culture: In 2015, Chow Tai Fook’s filigree masterpieces were showcased for international exchange at the Chinese Cultural Centre in Paris, France, the world’s capital of art. In 2016, Chow Tai Fook’s filigree collection was exhibited at a traditional Chinese handicrafts theme exhibition held in Paris, bringing Eastern traditional handicrafts to the international stage once again.
In 2023, Chow Tai Fook, in collaboration with MING DESIGN STUDIO, presented the jewellery ‘Filigree Clouds Rise’ series at the GLUE AMSTERDAM design exhibition in the Netherlands, using非遗 filigree as a cultural载体, allowing the world to experience the great beauty of非遗. Going abroad and bringing products to overseas design exhibitions, Chow Tai Fook showcases to world designers the innovative practice of Chinese非遗 in the field of jewellery design, and once again uses jewellery as a承接形式 of Eastern culture to convey the beauty of the East.
Inheritance, innovation, and going global—Chow Tai Fook’s非遗 inheritance and narrative of the East are pioneering and forward-looking. And Chow Tai Fook’s brand pursuit始终只有一个: taking the promotion of Eastern culture as its mission, upholding the belief of revitalizing非遗 through fashion, showcasing more exquisite Eastern beauty to the world, and making traditional crafts unique to China known and accepted by more people. In the future, Chow Tai Fook Jewellery will continue to deepen its efforts, using Eastern人文洞察 to create contemporary fashion jewellery, and传承东方的文明和美 in innovative ways.
