Hong Kong Jeweler Qeelin Enters US Market

Bo Bo classic pendant in 18k white gold with black and white diamonds

Qeelin is a Hong Kong-based jeweler that combines traditional Chinese themes with French craftsmanship, a design-first philosophy, the use of precious materials and a bit of whimsy. It designs, manufactures and sells its jewels through its more than 20 boutiques and other retail outlets, mostly in Asia.

The brand has made quite a name for itself in Asia and to a lesser extent Europe and the Middle East. Now it is entering the US market.

I first met Dennis Chan, Qeelin’s co-founder and creative director, in 2013 in Hong Kong when Qeelin wasn’t a year removed from its surprise acquisition by French luxury goods holding company, Kering. So it was nice surprise to see him again in New York accompanied by the brand’s new CEO, Christophe Artaux.

Wulu ring in 18k rose gold with pave diamonds

The brand is “dipping its toes” into the US market, Artaux said. It has no plans to open a boutique in the US, opting instead to work with luxury jewelry retailers located in large Asian communities. They will debut at Neiman Marcus stores beginning this month in Newport Beach, Las Vegas and Honolulu; and a few independent retailers in California, including CH Premier in Santa Clara. They plan to open with five more retailers in the first quarter of 2016.

They will be selective with their product mix as well entering the market with the brand’s most classic pieces (the brand has 12 core collections and also produce couture pieces, bridal jewelry, accessories, and ladies jewelry watches).

They said they expect to attract well-traveled Asians who are familiar with Qeelin as well as new customers.

The brand focuses on producing fine jewelry with traditional Chinese themes combined with French craftsmanship. Chan says he creates the designs first and then finds the precious materials to build the product.

Xi Xi ear studs in 18k white gold with diamonds and onyx

The brand specializes in fashionable versions of traditional Chinese images, such as pandas, goldfish and dragons using diamonds, 18k gold and precious gems. In some cases the parts move, such as the wings on the brand’s Phoenix necklace. The jewelry is light and lively and designed to be worn daily.

“I like blending east and west,” Chan said. “Our Bo Bo collection for example; the panda is China’s most treasured animal but in my collection it took on the characteristics of a teddy bear.”

The US is an attractive market for its sheer size and wealth. However, it is also a diverse and difficult market to master. The level of penetration this Chinese-themed brand will have in the US remains to be seen. A brand that creates, distributes and retails its own jewels certainly has an advantage.

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Beth Bernstein’s Book ‘If These Jewels Could Talk’ Set To Launch

Any day now writer and journalist Beth Bernstein will be celebrating the launch of her third book about jewelry. 

“If These Jewels Could Talk: The Legends Behind Celebrity Gems,” is part academic research, part a behind-the-scene look at celebrity and part emotional journey. With all of it involving jewels.

The book’s main focus is the glamour and glitz of Hollywood stars and their personal relationship with their gems and jewels primarily in the 20th Century, beginning at about the 1920s. However, political figures and others who celebrate the same style of the times also make their way onto the pages, including Coco Chanel, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Michelle Obama (a 21st Century figure). The book is filled with pictures and illustrations of jewels and their famous owners.

The book also looks at the impact of jewelry brands and their international growth and power in the high jewelry and fashion industries. They include Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Bulgari, Tiffany & Co, Harry Winston, David Webb and Verdura. The book’s cover shows the ruby, diamond, gold and platinum “Sash Heart” brooch, 1941, created by Verdura. It was commissioned by actor Tyrone Power for his wife, Annabella, for Christmas.

“Throughout the 20th Century the world’s most fabulous jewels have held tremendous sentimental and symbolic value, as they are linked to the most significant moments and memories of Hollywood ‘royalty,’ aristocracy and international icons of style,” Bernstein says. 

The time period is important because it is when the world became a more connected place through the introduction of modern travel and communication. The cultural influences of the Hollywood film industry spread to Europe while European style made its way to the US through the proliferation of magazines, movies and later television. This was the time that small European jewelry houses became international businesses with a huge influence on fashion. And it was the beginning of the influence celebrity fame and culture throughout the world. Stars and what they wore had a direct influence on mass appeal (as they do today) and the smarter and better-connected jewelry houses did their best to adorn these influencers with their jewels. 

Bernstein—a jewelry journalist for various publications and author of two previous books, and a jewelry historian—provides the personal tastes, anecdotes and the stories of the women who wore and collected the pieces. They include Elizabeth Taylor, the world’s most famous jewelry collector of the period, and socialite Helena Rubinstein who went out and bought her own pieces after arguments with her husband, dubbing them her “quarrel jewelry.” 

Wallis Simpson’s love story was told through her jewels. Grace Kelly’s emerald cut Cartier engagement ring appeared with her in the film, “High Society.” Marlene Dietrich was a collector who wore her jewels in several of her films.

There are also examples of jewels being a major influence on the plot of the film, such as the Cartier diamond bracelet in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat” and the Harry Winston diamond necklace in “Notorious.” 

The hardcover book, published by ACC Art Books, is $95 and will be available in the coming days. A launch party for the book will be held Thursday at Doyle & Doyle in New York, which specializes in vintage, antique, and estate jewelry. 

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The GraffStar Slim Eclipse

It’s a watch so dark and thin it’s practically stealth.

The Graff Slim Eclipse is crafted in a titanium black DLC case. The material provides exceptional strength, scratch resistance, and at 39 grams extremely lightweight.

Bringing the darkness theme to even more extreme levels, all the details of the watch are in black, including the Graff “icon” at 12 o’clock, the Graff name, the hands and hour makers, the black crown topped with a black diamond, the black alligator strap and the titanium black DLC pin buckle.

The watch is powered by the Graff Caliber 3—an ultra-slim self-winding Swiss movement that measures 3.20mm in depth. The 43mm watch case measures just 6.35mm deep.

The luxury brand says the watch is designed for daily use. In fact, that’s what Laurence Graff, the company’s founder and namesake, wears as his everyday timepiece.

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The New A. Lange & Söhne South Coast Plaza Boutique

Photo credit: Anthony DeMarco

German luxury watch brand, A. Lange & Söhne, added to its international network of boutiques with its newest location at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Calif.

The new store in the 240-store luxury retail mall officially opened with a cocktail reception on October 15 attended by nearly 100 persons.

A watchmaker demonstrates a few of the brand's 51 calibers. Photo credit: Anthony DeMarco

“Costa Mesa marks an important step in the brand’s expansion in the United States,” said Gaetan Guillosson, president of A. Lange & Söhne North America. “The first A. Lange & Söhne mono-brand store in California is a commitment to our ever increasing number of fans on the West Coast.”

Private sales room. Photo credit: Anthony DeMarco

It’s the fourth US boutique and first in California for the watch brand, known for its high-complication creations. The 925-square-foot store is typical of the traditional look and feel of A. Lange & Söhne boutiques. The signature grey color, known informally as “Lange grey,” with wood trim and furnishings dominates the three-room space. There are also sandstone elements, which serves as a nod to company’s Saxon origin. In addition to the main display area, there are two smaller rooms in the back, one for private sales and a library-like space for relaxing.

The 1815 “200th Anniversary F. A. Lange”

The reception included a selection of new timepieces from the Watches & Wonders luxury watch event held in January in Hong Kong. It included the 1815 “200th Anniversary F. A. Lange” in a honey gold case, a gold alloy unique to the watch brand. The watch celebrates the 200th birthday of the company’s founder, Ferdinand Adolph Lange. The manually wound caliber L051.1 is composed of 188 parts and has a power reserve of 55 hours. It is limited to 200 watches.

The gold A. Lange & Söhne watch I wore for the event.

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MB&F Reinterprets The Perpetual Calendar

A perpetual calendar is one of the most classic complications for a watch and one of the most difficult to maintain, according to Maximilian Büsser, founder of luxury watch brand MB&F.

“I call perpetual calendars boomerang watches because they come back for repair so often,” he says. “The mechanisms jam, block, break or jump days when they shouldn't.”

So when Irish watchmaker, Stephen McDonnell, came to Büsser with a new way to design a perpetual calendar, he was all ears. The resulting timepiece, Legacy Machine Perpetual, solves several problems inherent in traditional perpetual calendars while creating a new aesthetic for the complication, according to its makers.

Traditional perpetual calendars use a grand levier (lever) system, which assumes that, by default, all months have 31 days, Büsser says. Any manipulation or adjustment of the date during the monthly changeover can result in damage to the mechanism. The dates can also jump or skip during changeover, “negating the whole point of the perpetual calendar, which is not requiring adjustment for years,” Büsser says.

The 581-component caliber includes a patent-pending “mechanical processor” consisting of a series of superimposed disks. It takes the default number of days in the month at 28 (because, all months have at least 28 days) and then adds the extra days as required by each individual month. This ensures that each month has exactly the right number of days.

“There is no ‘skipping over’ redundant days, so there is no possibility of the date jumping incorrectly,” Büsser says.

The mechanical processor also enables quick-setting of the year so that it displays correctly in the four-year leap year cycle, whereas traditional perpetual calendar mechanisms may require the user to scroll through up to 47 months to arrive at the right month and year. And there’s an inbuilt safety feature that disconnects the quickset pushers during the date changeover, eliminating any risk of damage while the date is changing.

“The end here was to create a calendar which is foolproof,” McDonnell says. “You can press the correctors whenever you like. You can manipulate anyway you like. But whatever you do, you’re not going to break anything; you’re not going to damage anything.”

Replacing the big level system with MB&F’s mechanical processor enables the centre of the complication to be used, “thereby saving space and allowing design freedom as the full dial is no longer necessary,” according to the Geneva-based watchmaker.

With this new system, all of the indications of the perpetual calendar mechanism are placed on top of the movement’s main plate using skeletonized subdials, making the calendar easier to read while providing a new aesthetic.

“There’s no real difference between the display and the mechanisms,” McDonnell says. “The dials now appear to completely float in midair.”

Legacy Machine Perpetual launches with a limited edition of 25 pieces in 18k red gold and 25 pieces in platinum 950. 

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Doris Panos Fashion Collection

Cuff Collection

Doris Panos is an award-winning luxury jewelry designer for more than 20 years whose pieces are worn by celebrities and sold at high-end retailers. She is known for her gold and diamond designs that are both intricate and bold, including stackable rings and bangles, delicate marquis-shaped drop pendant necklaces, and 18k white gold, round-cut diamond stud earrings with pavé diamond border details, and big yellow-gold bracelets.

Flirty Eye Collection

During the past three years Panos has been branching out, creating more affordable fashion pieces based on her original designs and selling them through television retail networks such as HSN and QVC and through volume department stores such as JCPenney. 

Medussa Collection

She extended this further with the Doris Panos Fashion Collection unveiled in October. This more affordable collection is manufactured with the original designs and molds used for her luxury jewels, but using less costly materials, such as hand cut crystals in lieu of diamonds and brass overlay gold in lieu of precious metals. 

Precious Nest Collection

Panos insists that these are not knockoffs but “original designs by the original designer, for a fraction of the price.”

rose rings

The collection includes the signature stackable bangles, long layered necklaces, earrings and bold statement rings. The pieces are offered in four metal finishes of Silver Tone, Gold Tone, Rose Tone and Gunmetal. The jewels are available at select volume department retailers and exclusively on the new Doris Panos Fashion Collection website. Prices range from $40 to $250. 

Doris Panos

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Stanislas de Quercize Resigns As Cartier CEO, Richemont Sales Up 15%

Stanislas de Quercize, CEO of luxury jeweler Cartier, has requested that he be allowed to step down from his current position for personal reasons, effective immediately, Compagnie Financière Richemont announced Friday. The Swiss luxury goods holding company owns 19 luxury brands, including Cartier, which is its flagship brand. 

De Quercize has been CEO at Cartier since 2012 and has been with Richemont since 1990, serving in leadership positions with several brands, including CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels. He will also resign from Richemont’s Group Management Committee but will remain as a Group executive, taking over the role of chairman of Richemont France.

Cyrille Vigneron, currently the president of LVMH Japan, will succeed de Quercize on Jan. 1, 2016. Prior to joining the LVMH Group, Vigneron worked with Richemont from 1988 to 2013, principally with Cartier, rising to become managing director of Cartier Japan, president of Richemont Japan and managing director of Cartier Europe.

As CEO of Cartier, Vigneron will become a member of Richemont’s Group Management Committee. 

“Stanislas de Quercize has had a superb career to date, having worked with Cartier, Montblanc and Alfred Dunhill prior to taking up positions as chief executive of Van Cleef & Arpels and Cartier,” Johann Rupert, Richemont chairman said in a statement. “We deeply regret that Stanislas has decided to stand down but must accept his decision.”

Richemont made the announcement just prior to releasing its half-year results, ended September 30, showing that sales increased by 15 percent year-over-year to 5.82 billion euro ($6.32 billion). The increase was 3 percent at constant exchange rates. Net profit for the period increased 22 percent to 1.1 billion euro ($1.19 billion), while operating margin was 24 percent, down from 26 percent for the same period of the prior year. 

“Strong growth in our Maisons’ retail sales compensated for the decline in wholesale demand, which was principally driven by the Asia Pacific region. Jewelry sales grew strongly; this product area now accounts for one third of the Group’s sales,” Rupert said. “The impact of exchange rate volatility, in particular the strengthening of the Swiss franc, was largely absorbed through price adjustments and administrative cost controls. Operating profit in the period increased by 6 percent. This growth and the movements in currency gains and losses contributed to a net profit increase of 22 percent.”

In addition to Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, Richemont owns 17 other luxury brands, primarily in the watch and jewelry categories, including Montblanc, Vacheron Constantin and Piaget. 

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