Chow Tai Fook Jewelry’s new flagship retailer, which opened in Hong Kong’s Central neighborhood in September, has a refined design, as does a lot of the jewellery bought inside. The identify above the door doesn’t sport the Chinese language characters for “Chow Tai Fook” proven prominently atop the retailer’s hundreds of different shops. And inside, the shop’s design hearkens to among the conventional photographs of Hong Kong; the steel grille that covers the columns is a reference to the Chinese language metropolis’s ubiquitous bamboo scaffolding.
The jewellery, too, is extra understated, like a diamond-studded pendant comprised of gold and pink enamel, designed to emulate the Chinese language characters that make up the identify of the shop and of Cheng Yu Tung, who expanded the jewellery chain into one among Hong Kong’s main conglomerates.
In April, Chow Tai Fook charged Nicholas Lieou, the retailer’s artistic director for top jewellery, with the accountability of refreshing and revamping the 95-year-old model.
Courtesy of Chow Tai Fook
“In Chinese language jewellery, [the craftsmen] attempt to overload a number of cultural significance on one piece, which makes it very heavy,” Lieou mentioned in an interview in mid-November. “Simply utilizing one idea, one thought, into a bit of jewellery is already a really fashionable tackle what they historically would do.”
Luxurious downturn
A luxurious downturn is placing extra stress on Chow Tai Fook’s rebrand. The retailer reported 39.4 billion Hong Kong {dollars} ($5.1 billion) in income for the six months ending Sep. 30, 2024, the primary half of the jewellery firm’s fiscal yr. That represents a 20.4% drop year-on-year, the most important since 2016.
Chow Tai Fook depends closely on mainland China. Nearly all the retailer’s round 7,000 shops are in mainland China. The corporate’s second-largest footprint is in Hong Kong, the place tourism numbers have stayed stubbornly low.
Luxurious manufacturers have all reported sharp slowdowns of their China gross sales over the previous yr, as Chinese language buyers pull again on their spending amid a sluggish economic system. Bain estimates that China’s private luxurious market will drop by 22% in 2024, in comparison with a 3% improve in Europe.
Courtesy of Chow Tai Fook
Lieou, who spoke to Fortune earlier than the earnings launch, mentioned he was conscious of how troublesome it might be to promote excessive jewellery in a troublesome economic system—partly as a result of Chow Tai Fook may be very open with its gross sales knowledge. “Individuals are not going to purchase one thing they don’t like,” he famous. “We do should put [the economy] in consideration.”
That financial knowledge, in addition to modifications in how folks take pleasure in themselves post-COVID, is why his modernizing push focuses on “wearability” and “excessive jewellery for on a regular basis put on,” to enchantment to a youthful client. “At the moment, everyone seems to be much more informal. You’ve got quite a bit fewer galas and issues to go to, particularly after COVID.”
“Reasonably than these massive gala necklaces, you may create one thing a bit bit softer, a bit smaller in scale, however nonetheless fantastically made,” he mentioned.
Invigorating a 95-year-old model
Lieou joined Chow Tai Fook round 4 years in the past, after years working within the U.S., together with a stint with Tiffany’s because the retailer’s design director for top jewellery. He acquired a private pitch from Sonia Cheng, the retailer’s vice-chairman, to leap throughout the Pacific to take a job on the China-based retailer.
“I actually understood what she wished to do,” he mentioned. “She wished to invigorate and refresh the model. Being from Hong Kong, we all know what the model traditionally represents, what it signifies.”
Chow Tai Fook’s first retailer opened in Guangzhou in 1929, however shifted operations in the course of the Second World Conflict to the Portuguese colony of Macau and British Hong Kong. Cheng Yu Tung, the son-in-law of Chow Tai Fook’s founder, Chow Chi-yuen, took over the enterprise within the ’50s, and expanded the corporate into an enormous conglomerate with pursuits together with actual property (by developer New World), hospitality, and vitality.
Cheng’s granddaughter, Sonia Cheng, is now the vice-chairman and government director of the jewellery enterprise; she’s additionally the CEO of the Rosewood Lodge Group, owned by the household conglomerate (additionally named Chow Tai Fook).
Lieou sees Chow Tai Fook’s lengthy report as an asset as he thinks about modernizing the model. “There’s a lot historical past. It’s very straightforward to extrapolate cultural parts and use it within the design.”
Courtesy of Chow Tai Fook
“To create one thing new is more durable; to create from one thing—to reference one thing that’s culturally important—is simpler,” he continued.
A latest instance is the retailer’s “Gate” assortment, which trades on among the iconography of the normal doorways present in historic Chinese language buildings. However combining cultural particulars with fashionable kinds may be tough: One diamond bangle within the assortment requires 26 completely different elements to be put collectively, Lieou defined.
“[The craftsmen] weren’t fairly blissful about that,” he admitted. Chow Tai Fook depends on human craftsmen utilizing conventional strategies to place collectively every bit of jewellery. (Although there may be additionally a job for brand new expertise, like “5D gold,” a course of that hardens pure gold to make it extra sturdy.)
That results in a continuing negotiation between designers and craftsmen to show ideas right into a workable actuality: “We actually rely closely on the generational information of the craftsmen.”
However, for Lieou, that back-and-forth is a part of the enchantment of design. “Design, for me, is drawback fixing,” he mentioned. “How can we clear up this design problem in an aesthetic approach?”
The dimensions of the rebrand is clearly seen from Chow Tai Fook’s new flagship retailer. Two different shops—nonetheless sporting the previous branding—are actually steps away, alongside the identical identical 500 foot stretch of highway.
“It doesn’t hassle me,” Lieou mentioned. “Individuals are creatures of behavior, particularly once you purchase jewellery. You usually go to the identical [store] the place you got your first engagement ring, your first essential watch.”
“These are very significant realtionships we now have with clients.”
Fortune’s Brainstorm Design convention is returning on Dec. 5 on the MGM Cotai in Macau. Panelists and attendees will debate and focus on “Experiments in Expertise,” designs that blur the road between the bodily and digital worlds to captivate customers and foster lasting connections. Register right here!
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