‘We are the more creative and cutting-edge high jewellery brand on Place Vendome’: Boucheron’s CEO Helene Poulit-Duquesne

Boucheron came across a historic surprise when it renovated its flagship Place Vendome boutique in 2017. A forgotten safe was found when the store’s space was restructured, and false ceilings and walls were done away with. Much to CEO Helene Poulit-Duquesne’s disappointment, there were no forgotten “diamonds or letters” in it; the safe was empty. But the incident did spark in her an idea to leave future brand guardians a surprise memento when it finally came their time to renovate the store “100 years” or so.

“I got a gold book, and all the employees of Boucheron wrote a letter for the next generation. They wrote plenty of things in that book,” Poulit-Duquesne recalled. “Then, I put it in a case and hid it in the building. Only me and one of the workers who came with me to hide it knows where it is.”

Despite being Boucheron’s only boutique in Southeast Asia for now, it’s safe to presume that the recently reopened boutique at Marina Bay Sands will not hold on to any such secrets for any such time. (Boucheron has claimed its 26 Place Vendome address since 1893. It was the first jeweller to set up shop in the square so reputed today for being home to some of the world’s biggest jewellery houses.) Still, it’s an anecdote that accurately illustrates the soul of the Kering-owned brand that has been steadily gaining loyal fans for its distinct creativity and insistence on shaking things up in the jewellery world.

Congratulations on the reopening. What plans does Boucheron have for Singapore and Asia?

The renovation [of the Singapore store] is really important to us, and now that we have a team in Singapore, we have plans to explore the whole Southeast Asian region; it’s the beginning of a new story. Asia has been our absolute priority since I joined the company [in October 2015]. When I first joined, we had no boutique in China. Now, we also do very well in Korea, Taiwan, and, in 2023 particularly, we had great results in Japan.

Boucheron has forged quite a reputation for presenting the unexpected. Why is this crucial for the brand?

Boucheron releases two collections each year: Histoire de Style, which offers more classical designs, and Carte Blanche, which pushes boundaries. Can you tell us more about this?

We had an internal team discussion about this because we only had one collection a year [before], and I felt it had to be a brand statement; we needed to show our creativity and innovation. But the commercial people said that [the designs were] too innovative, too creative, and too difficult to sell. So, at some point, I said I wanted to separate the two collections. For [Histoire de Style in] January, I asked Claire [Choisne, artistic director of Boucheron] to cast a fresh eye on our archives – more about classics and big stones, etc. – and I told her, for this collection, she had no KPIs regarding press coverage. But I told the commercial director that his KPI was to sell all of the pieces. Then, for Carte Blanche in July, Claire had total freedom, but she had maximum KPIs in terms of press. Then, I told the commercial director if he didn’t sell any of these pieces, I didn’t care. One year later, we discovered that we sold all the pieces from July and had a lot of press in January! So everybody's happy. We still have quite a few clients who buy high jewellery for investing, but we also have clients who want to jump into Claire's high jewellery world – it’s much like buying contemporary art.

This year will be very exciting for you with the 20th anniversary of the Quatre collection. What can people expect?

Quatre is important to us because it’s our icon, like Love is at Cartier and Alhambra is at Van Cleef & Arpels. The 20th anniversary is a good opportunity for us to tell the story of Quatre, so there will be a full concept and a fresh campaign that we're launching globally at the end of February. We have a new Chinese brand ambassador, and our whole crew of ambassadors will be celebrating the anniversary in 2024.

How would you describe Boucheron to people unfamiliar with the brand?

We are the more creative and cutting-edge high jewellery brand on Place Vendome; we're a 165-year-old lady who is very energetic, creative, and fun – oh, and a little bit genderless.