It is my pleasure to welcome Debra Healy on BrandWatch. Debra Healy is a published writer in the field of jewelry history ("American Jewelry", "Tiffany", "Hollywood Jewels"). She is a jewelry historian, designer, and design analyst. She trained as a fine jeweler, and is an enamel expert. She restored many important enamel pieces by, Faberge, Cartier, 18th Century snuff boxes, 19th and 20th century jewels, vanity cases, and clocks. She has worked for museums, auction houses, dealers, and important collectors. For a decade she worked with a prominent collector of jewelry and precious objects in New York. She assisted with sales to private clients, corporations, and loans to major museums.
Over the coming weeks she will take us for a walk around the Place Vendôme in Paris. She will introduce us to the major evolutions major French jewelry brands have undertaken recently - showing us their consistencies and inconsistencies. We will thus discover Cartier, Mellerio dits Meller, Boucheron, Van Cleef & Arpels, Mauboussin, and Chaumet. Our first stop today will give us a global perspective on the Place Vendôme itself.
When I moved to France 14 years ago there was a seismic change underway in the world of high-end jewelry and watches. This was lead by Richemont’s Vendome group and its acquisition of Cartier.
Van Cleef & Arpels, Boucheron, Mauboussin, Chaumet and Mellerio dits Meller were all still in the hands of the heirs. This was a closed intimate world of retailers, suppliers, and workshops. Their treasured clients often bought from several of them. The principles of these firms all knew each other having grown up in the business, some of them with family members on both sides of the Atlantic.
An example of this intimate world, is a project I did in the 1980’s. I was asked by the late Claude Arpels, who headed the American operations of the Van Cleef & Arpels to restore an antique enamel brooch for a very special client, the client turned out to be Elizabeth Taylor. The piece was not by Van Cleef & Arpels but an Art Nouveau plique-a-jour enamel butterfly brooch by Boucheron, circa 1900.
Elizabeth Taylor was so pleased with the restoration that when my team and I were working on our second book, Hollywood Jewels, Abrams, New York, 1992. Elizabeth Taylor personally sent her fabulous Krupp diamond ring, and her Spanish crown jewel pearl necklace, La Peregrina, to us in New York to photograph for our book. At that time her jewels were transported from L.A. to New York by Cartier as a favor to her.
The biggest change today is the ownership of these venerable old brands. Have a look at the diagram below.
I would like to take you down Rue de la Paix and around Place Vendôme. We will look at the venerable French jewelry houses of 100 years or more who are still in business today. In order of appearance, I will discuss, Cartier, Mellerio dits Meller, Boucheron, Van Cleef & Arpels, Mauboussin, and Chaumet. I will give you a brief history of each firm, and then take a look into their windows to see what is happening with French jewelry today. (A Suivre....)
