This article is part of our Vogue Business Membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to Member-only reporting and insights, our NFT Tracker, Beauty Trend Tracker and TikTok Trend Tracker, weekly Technology, Beauty and Sustainability Edits and exclusive event invitations, sign up for Membership here.
It felt like it was Kering Week in New York.
On Monday night, the Kering Foundation hosted its star-studded ‘Caring for Women’ event at The Pool inside the Seagram Building, attended by the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Kim Kardashian, Donatella Versace, Katy Perry and Julianne Moore. Just a few hours earlier, Gucci global ambassador Jannik Sinner won the US Open. On Tuesday, Kering chairman and CEO François-Henri Pinault and his wife, actress Salma Hayek-Pinault were Gayle King’s guests on CBS Mornings to talk about the foundation. In the afternoon, Pinault visited Balenciaga’s new flagship post in SoHo, the house’s largest in the US. Finally, in the evening, he attended the Boucheron cocktail party at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, celebrating the jeweller’s first US flagship.
“It’s true that in terms of awareness, we’ve pulled out all the stops,” Pinault says in the museum’s garden, as guests including Gwyneth Paltrow, Alexa Chung and Anja Rubik enjoyed a music performance by Leon Bridges.
The opening of the first Boucheron standalone store in the US, at New York’s 747 Madison Avenue, on 3 September, is a milestone for the house and for its parent company Kering. The brand, founded by Frédéric Boucheron in 1858, has been in the hands of the Pinaults since the former Gucci Group acquired it in 2000. Under Boucheron CEO Hélène Poulit-Duquesne, who took on the role in 2015, the brand notably renovated its flagship on Place Vendôme (inaugurated in January 2019), opened approximately 15 stores in China, upgraded the retail network and reintroduced itself to the Japanese market — Poulit-Duquesne notes it was perceived as a bridal brand. It’s also expanding into South East Asia, notably Thailand, and with a second store in Singapore.
Through creative director Claire Choisne, the house has been pushing the creative envelope with its Carte Blanche high jewellery collections. Think eye-catching innovations, such as aerogel technology, something more typically associated with Nasa, in a collection titled Contemplation, launched in 2020; the More and More collection in 2023 at the frontier of contemporary art; and the Or Bleu collection in 2024 stressing the importance of water as a precious resource, featuring shoulder jewellery and more. Since 2021, Boucheron has been delivering double-digit growth rates consistently each quarter, a feat in the current environment and cyclical luxury slowdown.
Kering, in particular, has felt the brunt of that downturn. The many events in New York have brought some much-welcomed momentum for the group, which has seen profits plummet in the first half of 2024 as its star brand Gucci pursues a turnaround strategy. The company is set on maintaining its firepower. One way to do that is to make a big push for Boucheron in the US, where it can unlock untapped spending power from a vast and dynamic potential customer base.
“Thanks to its creative approach, Boucheron has great potential, especially with new customers. We take the time to build something very solid […] We’re only now arriving in the US. That can’t seem strange, it’s the biggest market for jewellery in the world. Why? We said: ‘Let’s build Boucheron in Europe, the Middle East, Japan where we have strong historic positioning. Then, when we’re ready, we’ll tackle the US.’ I think it’s a very very good approach,” Pinault says.
Why China before the US? “The ability to enter China for a European house, and the return on investment is faster than in the United States,” Poulit-Duquesne explained during an interview at the Cooper Hewitt Museum before the party. “The United States is a sublime jewellery market, but it's a market that takes a long time [to crack]. So we made strategic choices, saying to ourselves : ‘let's position ourselves where we have room to move fast, so that in phase two of our strategic plan, we can reinvest this money.”
“So far the clientele that I see in the US is made up of connaisseurs and younger generations, the core being between 20 and 40 years old,” says Poulit-Duquesne.
The New York opening kicks off a series of other Boucheron store developments stateside, paced to take place roughly every six months and starting with Las Vegas (before the end of 2024), Los Angeles (summer 2025) and Miami’s Bal Harbour shopping mall (early 2026).
The brand has nine points of sale in the US including Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman, but hasn’t had a standalone store in the US since it closed its two small boutiques in Hawaii and San Francisco in 2005 and 2011, respectively.
Stateside, the brand can benefit from its positioning at the highest end of the luxury jewellery pyramid. It’s a major asset in a market where high-net-worth individuals are holding up well while aspirational customers are affected by the economy. It can also count on its bold design, which already holds appeal to American consumers, as well as its established jewellery icon Quatre.
But Boucheron enters a mature market with fierce competition. Last year, Tiffany reopened its flagship on Fifth Avenue. Cartier, the world’s largest jeweller, renovated its NYC mansion in 2022. The brand plans to further raise its profile in the country. As of now, Boucheron has 60 per cent aided awareness among luxury customers in the US, without media investment, according to the company. “In 10 years, we would like the US to represent in our mix approximately the same share as it represents in the jewellery sector as a whole, meaning roughly 25 per cent,” Poulit-Duquesne says.
The brand also has a healthy balance sheet and is profitable, according to Kering. The group doesn’t break down the sales of its jewellery brands (Boucheron, Pomellato, Qeelin and Dodo). They are part of the Other Houses division that also includes Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen. “Organically, we quadrupled jewellery sales [over the past 10 years], reaching close to €1 billion,” Pinault said during the annual earnings conference in February. According to Morgan Stanley estimates, Boucheron generated sales of €425 million in 2023, Pomellato €305 million and Qeelin €155 million.
Poulit-Duquesne believes Boucheron alone has the potential to reach a billion euros in sales.
The Madison Avenue store and a three-day Boucheron exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt give a nice play to the history of the jewellery maison, the Place Vendôme flagship and its historical American clients, which include Caroline Astor, Rita Hayworth and Kirk Douglas.
“It’s the beginning of the adventure,” Pinault says. “I think it’s a market that will respond very positively to what we have to offer.”
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
More from this author:
The Paralympic breakout stars fashion needs to know
Miu Miu CEO to join Dior as managing director
Why Louis Vuitton and others are doubling down on the America’s Cup
