{"id":2317,"date":"2026-04-10T04:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/2317\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T04:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:35:09","slug":"charlotte-chesnais-second-decade-starts-with-tokyo-flagship-and-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/2317\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlotte Chesnais\u2019 Second Decade Starts With Tokyo Flagship and Gold"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPARIS \u2014 Charlotte Chesnais is writing the first stroke of a new chapter for her 10-year-old jewelry label with the opening of her largest flagship yet in Tokyo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tLocated in the Aoyama district, the stand-alone four-level unit mixing glass and what the Parisian jeweler jokingly described as \u201cTadao Ando concrete\u201d spans 1,100 square feet \u2014 three times larger than any of her Paris boutiques.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the leap in scale sits fine with Chesnais. \u201cNow that we\u2019ve opened it, we\u2019re saying that we only want big boutiques from now on,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tHaving the additional surface, spread across three levels of retail<\/a> spaces with room for offices underground, as well as sweeping high-ceilinged volumes, was an opportunity to unfurl a new experience of the brand.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s really a boutique where you\u2019re invited to sit down,\u201d she said. \u201cWe really wanted a space where people slow down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are comfortable seating areas made for lingering over a hot beverage and some jewels, monumental cast glass tables and interesting elements such as Chesnais XXL objects shaped like her jewels. Visitors might also find the extensive use of silver leaf on the walls rather arresting, given its ability to reflect the ample natural light but also change over time.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s going to oxidize, change color, so the boutique won\u2019t be the same depending on when you visit,\u201d Chesnais said. \u201cWhen the sun hits it directly, it\u2019s almost blinding. At the end of the day, it turns almost orange, like it\u2019s burning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe project had long been on the Parisian\u2019s mind. Not only did she fall in love with Japan early in her career, when she took part in an inspiration trip with Nicolas Ghesqui\u00e8re during his tenure at Balenciaga, but the market loved her own brand right back from the early days.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Charlotte<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCharlotte Chesnais\u2019 flagship store<\/a> in Tokyo<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLocal Artist\/Courtesy of Charlotte Chesnais<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the years, Chesnais said she \u201ccould feel [she] had a real fanbase,\u201d but felt the retail<\/a> experience was incomplete despite long-standing and solid wholesale partnerships.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s the market we\u2019ve worked the most after France,\u201d said Chesnais, who decided early on to focus her then-small team\u2019s efforts on those two territories, with a PR agency and commercial agent in Japan, as well as very regular visits from the designer.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe country accounts today for 15 percent of the business behind France, which leads in Europe\u2019s combined 70 percent, and well ahead of the U.S.\u2019 10 percent share, which is emerging strongly e-commerce.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the company does not disclose its overall sales revenue, the team has now grown to 22 at its Paris headquarters plus around 30 retail staff at the five points of sale under direct control, which also include two Paris stores and outposts at Galeries Lafayette and Le Bon March\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt some point it was frustrating. We felt Japan was the country that would be most sensitive to the full proposition \u2014 architecture, special packaging, everything \u2014 so it made sense to open a flagship there, and to do it directly, without a partner.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Aoyama didn\u2019t come easy. \u201cWe\u2019d been looking for a year, and nothing felt right \u2014 too big, too expensive, or just not us,\u201d she recalled. A last-minute call, days before Christmas 2024, had her husband, who serves as chief executive officer of the brand, rushing to Japan. The lease was signed 24 hours later.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter a year\u2019s renovation, the address designed in collaboration with Dutch architect Anne Holtrop is Chesnais\u2019 Tokyo flagship, but will also be \u201ca bit of a headquarter for Asia,\u201d the jeweler said. \u201cWe hope the store will allow us to shine more in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis expansion comes on top of an already dense year for the house, which included its milestone anniversary and the formal launch of an 18-karat gold fine jewelry line in July, the culmination of two to three years of build-up.<\/p>\n

\n\tUntil then the jeweler dabbled, a bespoke request here, a clutch of pieces dropped in-store there, but there was \u201cno collection, no [firm] plan, no wholesale,\u201d she said. \u201cYou really had to be curious and a fan of the brand to know those pieces existed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBuilding up this 18-karat gold offering, which starts at just under 1,000 euros for one of her gem-set curvaceous letters from the \u201cAlphajoaillerie\u201d initials line and goes north of 7,500 euros for the full pav\u00e9 version of her winding Round Trip ring, was equal parts opportunity and challenge.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Charlotte<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCharlotte Chesnais\u2019 flagship store<\/a> in Tokyo<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLocal Artist\/Courtesy of Charlotte Chesnais<\/p>\n

\n\tTake the sinuous volumes the brand is known for. Keeping true to them required adjusting the way stones are set.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA diamond has a table, it\u2019s flat [so] at first, it flattened my designs and I didn\u2019t recognize them,\u201d Chesnais explained. \u201cWe ended up with a technique where we set tiny stones on several staggered rows in different sizes. You don\u2019t really see it with the naked eye, but it keeps the wire looking round, even though it\u2019s fully pav\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, the surge in gold prices required Chesnais to carefully plot out stock, price revisions but also how to fine tune the balance of her silver and vermeil lines, with the new fine jewelry.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the former will continue the bold signature that won her the inaugural ANDAM<\/a> Prize for accessories back in 2015, the 18-karat line will lean delicately sculptural, play with more important stones and even pearls.<\/p>\n

\n\tThroughout, Chesnais \u201cwill try to take the best practices of the biggest houses while keeping the agility, independence and style\u201d she\u2019s developed. \u201cIt\u2019s not going to happen overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor now, with the inauguration of the Tokyo store Friday, she\u2019d \u201clove to just roll with it for a bit,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut I know myself, by the end of 2026, I\u2019ll be bored and set a new project out for the team,\u201d she added with a laugh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2014 Charlotte Chesnais is writing the first stroke of a new chapter for her 10-year-old jewelry label…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2563,2564,8,2565,52],"class_list":["post-2317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tokyo","tag-andam","tag-flagship-store","tag-japan","tag-retail","tag-tokyo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}