Bucking the luxury downturn and then some, Boucheron has had a stellar run in the past 18 months.
Quarter after quarter, the Kering-owned jewelry house’s progression has been characterized by double-digit growth. While Kering does not break out results for jewelry houses, even in the tougher-than-expected third quarter, they “put in a resilient performance,” the luxury group said in its quarterly release.
One mark of the French jeweler’s confidence in the future was the 2023 acquisition of a Paris-based workshop to reinforce its high jewelry capabilities. But the biggest sign is 3,900 square feet in size: a New York City flagship.
It opened in September on Madison Avenue and marked the start of a new chapter in the U.S., where Boucheron had been without stand-alone stores for more than a decade. It was retailing solely through partners Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman.
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This is a landmark moment on the path initiated in 2015 when Hélène Poulit-Duquesne was named the jeweler’s chief executive officer.
When she joined, Asia-Pacific was her first focus. She overhauled the brand’s long-standing presence in Japan, cemented the South Korean market and established Boucheron strongly in China.
Boucheron’s “success in new markets” was highlighted in Kering’s full-year results for 2022. The jeweler opened a flagship in Tokyo’s upscale Ginza neighborhood in September 2023 and expanded into Southeast Asia, marked with the reopening of its Marina Bay Sands boutique in Singapore.
Now a more mature company, Boucheron is ready to for its American adventure. After New York, the jeweler is heading to Las Vegas, with a store in the Fontainebleau mall slated for December, followed in 2025 by locations on Los Angeles’ Rodeo Drive and Bal Harbour in Miami.
That’s one of the reasons why Boucheron is receiving the WWD Honor for Jewelry Brand of the Year for 2024.
As far as Poulit-Duquesne is concerned, she’s not the sole architect of this sparkling run.
“At Boucheron, everything is the result of collective intelligence — it is our state of mind,” she told WWD.
Case in point, the pop-up Quatre boutiques that have cropped up throughout Boucheron’s anniversary year in Paris, Seoul, Shanghai and Tokyo, each bringing ultra-precious takes on the line that have included a belt that transforms into six other pieces, including necklaces, bracelets and a hair jewel. There was also a bespoke capelet worn by Anja Rubik, composed of 315 rings, used for a new campaign globally.
“The Quatre anniversary has allowed us to celebrate our heritage while showcasing how we continually reinvent it,” said the executive of this collection, which was launched in 2004 and has been continuously updated since.
Another example of the power of teamwork Poulit-Duquesne wanted to highlight is the brand’s redesigned cases, unveiled in June 2023.
“We faced a big challenge with our former jewelry case being too large, too heavy,” she said. “I challenged my teams with the concept ‘no pack is the new pack,’ which led to an eco-design approach requiring collective intelligence from our entire team and partners.”
Gone is the traditional square that flipped open at the top with 13 different formats made from 11 non-recyclable materials. In their stead came new shapes — seven styles in round and elongated ovals — but using aluminum and wool felt only, creating cases four times lighter than their predecessors.
Serving as a North Star to the company’s endeavors is the direction initiated by founder Frédéric Boucheron. “[The brand’s] unique identity today is deeply rooted in our heritage [as] the most stylish and cutting-edge French high jewelry maison since 1858,” the executive said.
“Innovation and progress have been in our DNA since our founding, and we continue to push the boundaries of the traditional high jewelry industry,” she continued. “This philosophy ensures that Boucheron remains not just relevant, but a forerunner in the industry — we light the way for others.”
That’s a mandate she and creative director Claire Choisne are happy to embrace.
“It is an easy task since Claire and I are both passionate about innovation,” Poulit-Duquesne said.
Choisne has therefore largely supplemented the traditional jewelry palette and crafts with all manner of techniques and materials. There’s been aerogel, the ultralight combination of air and silica used by NASA to capture star dust in outer space; Cofalit, a material considered the “ultimate waste” produced at the very end of any possible recycling, and magnesium, a metal 10 times lighter than gold.
Most recently, there has been Quatre 5D Memory, a diamond-set ring made of nanostructured glass on which a soundtrack has been encoded thanks to a laser engraving technique that can pack gigabytes of data on minute surfaces.
Given the material’s properties, this ring could last billions of years, preserving the audio work, inspired by the sound of waves on the Atlantic Ocean, developed with the IRCAM — Centre Pompidou public research center dedicated to musical creation and scientific research.
“This piece proves that we have still not reached the boundaries of jewelry, and we will continue to push to them, so as to fully express the strength of our creative vision,” Choisne declared.
“By succeeding in encapsulating an audio work within a jewelry design, we are exploring new territories of expression and opening up limitless realms of possibility,” added Poulit-Duquesne, describing the ring as “the vessel that holds a memory, an emotion, that is given to future generations.”
But Boucheron is not resting on its laurels. Boucheron and Poulit-Duquesne have their eyes firmly forward. Next year there will be a highlight on the Serpent Bohème collection, a design first launched in 1968 and expanded upon in 2022, while new creations will come in the Quatre line.
Another throughline for 2025 will be the desire to make experiences even more memorable for clients. Hot on the heels of an interactive high jewelry event in London on Oct. 3 that had comedians portraying key figures from Boucheron’s history, the brand is building a new immersive concept that’s set to make its debut next year.
And for the first time, Choisne will give two different reads to a single theme across 2025, developing this yet-to-be-revealed idea across the no-holds-barred Carte Blanche line and Histoire de Style, which draws from the jeweler’s heritage.
