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 offered 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 a number of the conventional photographs of Hong Kong; the metallic 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 constructed from gold and crimson 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 in every of Hong Kong’s main conglomerates.
In April, Chow Tai Fook charged Nicholas Lieou, the retailer’s artistic director for prime 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 lots of cultural significance on one piece, which makes it very heavy,” Lieou stated in an interview in mid-November. “Simply utilizing one idea, one concept, into a bit of knickknack is already a really fashionable tackle what they historically would do.”
Luxurious downturn
A luxurious downturn is placing extra strain 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 biggest since 2016.
Chow Tai Fook depends closely on mainland China. Nearly the entire 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 customers pull again on their spending amid a sluggish financial system. Bain estimates that China’s private luxurious market will drop by 22% in 2024, in comparison with a 3% enhance in Europe.
Courtesy of Chow Tai Fook
Lieou, who spoke to Fortune earlier than the earnings launch, stated he was conscious of how tough it might be to promote excessive jewellery in a troublesome financial system—partially as a result of Chow Tai Fook may be very open with its gross sales information. “Individuals are not going to purchase one thing they don’t like,” he famous. “We do need to put [the economy] in consideration.”
That financial information, in addition to adjustments in how individuals get pleasure from themselves post-COVID, is why his modernizing push focuses on “wearability” and “excessive jewellery for on a regular basis put on,” to attraction to a youthful client. “At present, everyone seems to be much more informal. You could have quite a bit fewer galas and issues to go to, particularly after COVID.”
“Quite than these massive gala necklaces, you may create one thing slightly bit softer, a bit smaller in scale, however nonetheless fantastically made,” he stated.
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 prime 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 needed to do,” he stated. “She needed 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 throughout 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 way of developer New World), hospitality, and power.
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 simple to extrapolate cultural parts and use it within the design.”
Courtesy of Chow Tai Fook
“To create one thing new is tougher; to create from one thing—to reference one thing that’s culturally important—is simpler,” he continued.
A current instance is the retailer’s “Gate” assortment, which trades on a number of the iconography of the normal doorways present in historic Chinese language buildings. However combining cultural particulars with fashionable types will be tough: One diamond bangle within the assortment requires 26 completely different components to be put collectively, Lieou defined.
“[The craftsmen] weren’t fairly pleased about that,” he admitted. Chow Tai Fook depends on human craftsmen utilizing conventional strategies to place collectively every bit of knickknack. (Although there may be additionally a task for brand new know-how, 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 attraction of design. “Design, for me, is downside fixing,” he stated. “How will we remedy this design problem in an aesthetic manner?”
The size 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 street.
“It doesn’t trouble me,” Lieou stated. “Individuals are creatures of behavior, particularly once you purchase jewellery. You typically go to the identical [store] the place you purchased your first engagement ring, your first vital watch.”
“These are very significant realtionships we’ve 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!
