Show Me The Chaumet!

The jewellery maison’s roots may reach all the way back to Marie Antoinette and Napoleon, but Chaumet has its sights set firmly on a future in Australia.

- Jamie Huckbody

It’s S/S 2018 couture week and the City of Light is living up to its reputation as a playground for the rich and famous. At the heart of it all is Place Vendôme, the spiritual address of patrician French luxury, where Schiaparelli still operates from No. 21 (in the very same salons that Elsa moved into in 1935), and where the Ritz is still, after its extensive refurb, home away from home to Russian oligarchs and Chinese squillionaires. (This being the Ritz, the makeover took nearly four years and reportedly more than $600 million.)

Dotted around the perimeter of Place Vendôme is a who’s-who of Paris haute joaillerie. There’s Boucheron, Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, to name just a few, and at No. 12, there is the oldest of them all: Chaumet. The latest chapter of its 238- year history is getting a distinctly Australian flavour with the opening of two new boutiques, in Westfield Sydney this April and in Melbourne this spring.

“Maybe our Australian customer will choose something from our Aigrette collection because of its connection to Chaumet’s tiaras and Empress Joséphine, or maybe she will choose something from the Liens range, expressing aesthetically the connection between two people: a mother and child, or two lovers,” ponders Jean-Marc Mansvelt,Chaumet’s enigmatic chief executive. “What is for certain is that we offer variety at Chaumet. Variety in terms of budget and variety in terms of stories and meanings. For us, this is very important so that people can make their own journey and make their own choices.”

It’s this very particular idea of exclusivity — one that has more to do with personal choice than pricey carats — that lies at the heart of Chaumet; the company’s mercurial ambiguity means it refuses to be stereotyped.