Designer Ana Khouri presented 50 pieces of her jewellery at Phillips auction galleries in New York this month

Auction houses and contemporary jewellers are moving beyond the traditional sale room and retail environments to capture the attention of jewellery collectors.

The arrangement is mutually beneficial: for the jeweller, an auction house offers legitimacy and a global network of private and professional clients. For the auction house, the work of a contemporary designer augments its offering of antique and estate jewels, and shows it is keeping a keen eye on new trends.

“It’s a very good collaboration,” says Albert Boghossian, head of the eponymous Swiss jewellery house and gem merchants.

“It’s a strategy designed to give power to the auction house and to take power from them,” he says. Boghossian’s Manuscript coloured diamond bracelet sold for $4.5m at Christie’s Hong Kong in May, setting the record for the most expensive such bracelet ever sold at auction.

This month designer Ana Khouri presented about 50 pieces, ranging from $10,000 to $2m, at a selling exhibition at Phillips’ New York galleries. It was the New York-based Brazilian designer’s first time working with an auction house. Until now, her high jewellery collection has been available by private appointment as well as being presented to a limited audience during Paris Haute Couture Week every July.

Ms Khouri’s Phillips exhibition exposed her work to a global audience. “As an auction house, Phillips has amazing visibility,” says Ms Khouri. “It provides a platform in a different sphere.”

Boghossian diamond and seed pearl bracelet
Boghossian diamond and seed pearl bracelet

For Phillips, the Khouri exhibition marked the second step in its strategy to position contemporary jewellery as a serious design collectable alongside its offerings of art, furniture and photography. The first was an exhibition in New York and London in March of the work of British jeweller Lauren Adriana. Of the 35 pieces offered for sale, more than half found buyers.

“We are one of the only auction houses who takes the work of emerging artists who have never been presented at auction before and develops a market for them,” says Susan Abeles, Phillips’ head of jewellery for the Americas. “We want to provide the same platform for contemporary jewellers. It helps elevate them and it gives them exposure.”

Ms Adriana says her exhibition provided access to a desirable audience, reaching “the community of jewellery collectors, educators and fans that exist in New York and London, and that for me was very special”.

Just as collectors are buying across an increasingly wide range of disciplines, from fine art and furniture to jewellery, the auction houses are meeting that demand by diversifying their offering across different channels, with a mix of auction, private and online sales. The jewellers choose the appropriate channel for each.

A Tanzanite 'Gioconda' Ring and an Emerald 'Marcia' Ring
Ana Khouri's tanzanite ‘Gioconda’ ring and emerald ‘Marcia’ ring

Boghossian offers on average one piece a year at auction in a strategy it believes has been central to developing its international standing. It purposely offers only its best designs and rarest stones at auction.

“In terms of establishing yourself as an international luxury brand, working with an auction house lends a neutrality and recognisable legitimacy to your brand and to your pieces,” says Mr Boghossian.

The location of the sale room is another important factor. The aesthetic and materials of the Manuscript bracelet made it suited to Asia, which is the strongest market for coloured diamonds.

“We’ve sold in New York and Geneva but we are focusing more on Asia as we feel the auction houses are more dynamic, and also our taste is aligned with the Asia market,” says Mr Boghossian. The auction strategy works hand in hand with that for retail. Boghossian is scheduled to open its first store in Asia, in the Prince’s Building shopping mall in Hong Kong this month.

“It is exceedingly important for Christie’s to collaborate with and present these modern-day artists,” says François Curiel, Christie’s chairman for Europe and Asia. “These latest design geniuses are significant components to a comprehensive and successful sales collection.”

Fabio Salini has chosen to make his work available at Christie’s through private sales. A selection of his designs was presented at the auctioneer’s King Street private salon in London in March, followed by presentations in Dubai, Singapore and Paris. “It’s a very interesting way to approach clientele as they have access to a very different network of people,” says Mr Salini.

He sees the collaboration as a long-term relationship where he and the auction house can take advantage of what he describes as “vibrant moments in the year” in any given destination, such as art fairs.

Cindy Chao has been placing her creations at auction since 2007. She acknowledges the risks of a piece not reaching its reserve price, or at worst not selling at all. “My determination to keep this situation from happening has spurred me to work harder on my own creations,” says the Taiwanese jeweller. The benefits of helping to build an international brand outweigh the risks, she adds. Her most recent sale was a new rendition of her maple earrings at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong. They sold for HK$1,375,000 ($175,000), double the low sales estimate.

Sotheby’s is holding an online-only sale of bespoke jewels created by Italian jeweller Michele Della Valle until October 1. It follows a sale by the designer in Geneva in June 2017, which was 98 per cent sold and achieved more than double the presale estimate.

Ruby and diamond ‘smile’ brooch by Michele Della Valle
Ruby and diamond ‘smile’ brooch by Michele Della Valle

This strategy reflects changing collector habits. Against a consolidated year-on-year sales increase at Sotheby’s of 22 per cent for the first half of 2018, online sales increased by 30 per cent. In the past six months, private sales have grown 63 per cent versus the same period last year. “It’s clear that today’s collectors — including, of course, jewellery collectors — are embracing different ways of buying and selling at Sotheby’s,” says Laurence Nicolas, executive vice-president and global managing director of its watches and jewellery department.

In Geneva earlier this year, the auctioneer showed Art-à-Porter, its first sales exhibition of contemporary jewellery, design and contemporary art. It included work by jewellers Elie Top and Eliane Fattal, as well as a selection of contemporary art jewels curated by gallerist Louisa Guinness. Next month, Sotheby’s London will host a selling exhibition of French designer Édéenne (October 25-31), her first public exhibition in the UK.

Selling at auction can be a good option for a jeweller at the start of their career. When Emmanuel Tarpin, 26, wanted to launch himself as an independent jeweller last year after leaving his position in the workshops of Van Cleef & Arpels, he chose to auction his first creation at Christie’s in New York.

Despite being an unknown name, it was a risk that paid off for both sides. His pair of diamond and aluminium “geranium” ear pendants sold in December for $25,000 against an estimate of $20,000-$30,000. Mr Tarpin says: “It was a fabulous opportunity for me to start through a very famous auction house with all the communication, visibility, exhibitions it provides.”

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