PARIS — At first glance, the Bäumer Rose rings have as much va-va-voom as any high jewelry creation.
Modeled after heritage garden roses, each of these eight rings is a sculptural rose with petals gem-set on the inside and outside, bearing an oval-cut center gem. These range from tanzanite and tourmalines to black and yellow diamonds.
They also come with a digital Web3 passport that embarks proof of ownership, traceability information on its gold and gemstones and a digital NFT twin, developed through a strategic partnership with 3D tech studio Societhy and immersive experience specialists Next Decade.
“The Roses are jewels but it’s also a new way of working, a new way of offering a jewelry piece because it is augmented,” Lorenz Bäumer told WWD.
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But he wanted to give that digital facet a bit of additional sparkle too: It grants access to IRL out-of-the-ordinary experiences.
“We love to innovate and do things differently,” continued the jeweler, who celebrated his brand’s 30th anniversary in 2023. “I trained as an engineer so seeing all the extraordinary things that technology allows us to do, from welcoming our clients, to sketching jewelry and working with the ateliers, made me want to take this a step further.”
But an initial concept around virtual tokens that could be redeemed for the actual jewels left Bäumer and chief executive officer Cédric Aumonier unconvinced, even at the height of the NFT bubble.
“We realized that it was a bit too abstract to start with the NFT, so we returned to the essential: starting from the jewelry,” the jeweler said. “It was more fitting to have a real piece that is augmented with a digital passport, a digital twin and more.”
The digital world also allowed his imagination free reign to dream up an immersive film where an amethyst meteorite crash-lands on Place Vendôme and turns the Parisian landmark into a field of glittering flowers.
But the most striking feature of these Roses and their passports is membership to Club 19, open only to the current owners of the jewels, which are priced between 60,000 and 220,000 euros.
“Our goal is not to digitalize everything and go full-on in the blockchain,” Aumonier said. “What we’re interested in is the novelty side of it, which allows us to trigger our clients’ curiosity and take them somewhere. It’s about the experience.”
For the jewelry executive, the project was a necessary innovation that was less about tapping in digital passports’ potential in terms of customer relationship management that it was about deepening the relationship with the house’s clients.
“When you’re a small [independent] house, you have to step up in terms of closeness, which is more difficult for bigger brands,” the jewelry executive said. “The biggest expectation of our clients isn’t on product, it’s on [us] seeing, understanding and recognizing who they are, as well as giving them proper attention.”
The first event for the Club 19 is slated for June 5. While Bäumer was keen to keep details under wraps, he said it could be anything from getting a bird’s-eye view from the Colonne Vendôme, which is rarely accessible to the public, a tasting of the world’s rarest whiskeys or even an initiation to surfing.
The jeweler is a keen surfer himself and his private salons in Paris and Doha, Qatar, are modeled after surf shacks. “My clients might have less time to meet others than they would like to,” he continued. “We create opportunity for those encounters through jewelry because that’s how connections are forged.”
He also symbolized the idea of community through a new fine jewelry line titled “Hanami,” after the Japanese word for cherry blossom viewing. “It’s really about the moment where you invite friends to sit under the trees to share a moment together, contemplating the beauty of nature.”
