De Beers Pops Up at Galeries Lafayette for the Holidays
PARIS — De Beers is taking pride of place at the Galeries Lafayette for its first ever pop-up in Europe, which opened Tuesday.
Until Jan. 12, the 230-square-foot space is displaying the jeweler’s Enchanted Lotus collection at the Western “Mogador” entrance of the Boulevard Haussmann department store.
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But the idea behind the monthlong operation is not to drum up sales on the spot, De Beers Jewellers chief executive officer Céline Assimon told WWD.
Arranged around a frosted totem figuring the collection’s quadrilobed motif used for the seasonal campaign, the cases displaying designs that range from a delicate white gold and diamond chain bracelet priced at 2,650 euros and up to high jewelry versions with a six-figure price tag aren’t even meant to be opened.
Having a pop-up “at the heart of the traffic of major department stores and malls, such as Galeries Lafayette or SKP in China is a way for the brand to develop its desirability,” the executive said. “Previously [pop-ups] amounted to extra windows, but there’s an experiential aspect that is important today.”
Hence why De Beers “chose to present exceptional pieces to visitors coming to Galeries Lafayette for their holiday shopping,” to create an icebreaker moment that leads up to the jeweler’s 550-square-foot boutique on the department store’s first floor.
Moving forward, such pop-ups “will be a tool we deploy around the world,” to bolster its 40-strong retail network, the executive said.
Assimon also wants to break the brand out of the bridal niche for which it is best known, particularly among French clients.
With an average price in the multiple-four-figures, the higher end of fine jewelry offered by the Enchanted Lotus felt like the ideal vector for this.
Represented in the Galeries Lafayette pop-up are items of “everyday fine jewelry” coming under 10,000 euros but also designs from the 10,000- to 250,000-euro segment that Assimon introduced since her arrival in 2020.
The collection’s sales grew 60 percent last year and the executive said the medium-sized motif, introduced here and priced at 4,325 euros, was almost sold out, while a 9,000-euro ring was among the bestsellers in the range.
Getting the attention of Paris-based clients at Galeries Lafayette is a warm-up for what’s coming next in Paris for De Beers: a flagship.
For this “natural next step in the capital of high jewelry in the world,” the brand is looking at places with “a similar pedigree” to Old Bond Street in London, Madison Avenue in New York and Hong Kong’s Canton Road, she said. “There aren’t 50 places that could welcome a house like ours,” she teased, promising that hoarding would mark the spot soon enough.
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