Hugues de Pins of Van Cleef & Arpels. Photo / Olivia Kirkpatrick
Luxury jewellery retailer Van Cleef & Arpels has brought a slice of Paris to central Auckland with the opening of its first New Zealand store.
The global business, which despite operating 150 stores worldwide still handcrafts its jewellery in small workshops across France, had been looking to set up a local boutique in New Zealand since 2019.
The opening of the jewellery store, which is on the corner of Queen St and Customs St in the site that formerly housed Nespresso, has been two years in the making after it faced a setback due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The store - designed to mimic the interior of an art deco-style Parisian apartment - opened on May 20. It was originally planned to open in January but lockdowns and material shipment delays imported from France forced delays.
In an exclusive interview, Hugues de Pins, managing director of Van Cleef & Arpels Southeast Asia and Oceania, told the Herald he believed there was a strong appeal for Van Cleef & Arpels in New Zealand, and the brand had high hopes for its expansion here.
De Pins said Van Cleef & Arpels was confident the brand would resonate with Kiwis, and the opening came at a good time as international borders opened up.
"We look at New Zealand as a land of opportunities for luxury jewellery, we see a very similar path in New Zealand compared to other countries before New Zealand. The level of education to European luxury is increasing, the demand is also increasing and we have already a lot of New Zealand clients."
Setting up the boutique in New Zealand was a significant investment, but de Pins said Van Cleef & Arpels was not focused on the immediate return of investment. Nine local staff have been employed to operate the store.
"We don't look at the return in investment, we look at the return in love. Long-term presence, which is the most important thing, and client satisfaction.
"One of the trademarks of this company is we don't set any commercial objectives when we start a boutique like this one, we set satisfaction objectives and sales come as a result. The client experience is above any other performance objective," said Singapore-based de Pins.
Van Cleef & Arpels expanded into Australia six years ago and today has three boutiques, one in Sydney and two in Melbourne. The Auckland store marks its fourth in Oceania.
The company was founded 110 years ago by married couple Alfred Van Cleef and Estelle Arpels, whose families both worked in the jewellery business. Together they opened their first boutique in Paris in 1906.
While competing against the likes of luxury retailers such as Bulgari, Van Cleef & Arpels is known for its slow-paced, well-considered expansion strategy.
The retailer has no further plans in place to open more stores across New Zealand. However, de Pins said this would be determined by the performance of the Auckland one.
"I'm very confident this store will be successful. We're here for the long term ... and hopefully after Auckland there will be more."
Van Cleef & Arpel joins a long list of luxury international retailers operating in lower Queen St, including Gucci, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Coach and SC Luxury.
Heart of the City interim chief executive Steve Armitage said Van Cleef & Arpel was the first of a number of new retailers coming to Queen St.
"It is fantastic to have Van Cleef & Arpels open up on Queen St. The Dilworth building is a prime corner site with great proximity to our new public spaces and other destinations such as Commercial Bay and Britomart. We're excited about the expanding and unique retail offer in the city centre - Van Cleef & Arpels' opening is the first of a number of new retailers coming to Queen St which includes the first to NZ market SC Luxury opening soon."
Armitage said Heart of the City's latest spending data showed that as of late May, trading in the Auckland CBD was about 75 per cent of 2019, pre-pandemic spending levels.
"We've still got a long way to get back to pre-Covid levels both in terms of spend and foot traffic, but with borders set to be fully open next month including for cruise, we're confident that along with a strong events calendar, new retail and hospitality of the calibre of Van Cleef & Arpels will be a drawcard for people to visit."
Murray Bevan, founder of fashion PR agency Showroom 22 – which represents a number of Britomart-based fashion brands, said 2022 was gearing up to be another busy year for New Zealand's luxury retail sector following a couple of years of delays or disruption caused by lockdown and the onset of the pandemic.
"Multiple global brands were gearing up to open stand-alone stores in Auckland [in 2020]. Covid lockdowns around the world set back those plans, but most importantly they didn't derail any of the plans to open stores - a sure sign that luxury fashion, footwear and jewellery houses around the world see New Zealand as an important and affluent market," Bevan told the Herald.
"Fashion houses such as Burberry, Jimmy Choo and Michael Kors all invested heavily in their own New Zealand stores in 2021 and were rewarded with strong retail sales.
"Any time you walk into Westfield's flagship Newmarket development, the queues outside these stores and others like Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and Gucci tell you everything you need to know about how well they're performing here."
Bevan said that at the end of 2021 his agency had worked alongside Gucci on its Gucci 100 campaign in New Zealand, a celebration of the fashion house's 100-year anniversary.
"The fact Gucci are investing in local media and influencer content, instead of repurposing global content, is another positive sign that they see a strong future in building a local profile.
"Now with the first Van Cleef & Arpels boutique opening on Queen St in Auckland, this is yet another strong signal to brands all over the world that Auckland is becoming a truly valuable destination for international luxury.
"Richemont, the Swiss luxury goods holding company that owns Van Cleef & Arpels, along with others including Montblanc, Panerai, Cartier and Dunhill, are leading the way in positioning fine luxury jewellery and watches in stand-alone premises in New Zealand.
"Who knows which brands will arrive next?"
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