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Francesca Fearon

Is bespoke jewellery a modern fashion statement? Are jewels designed and made exclusively for a wearer the ultimate expression of the individual?
According to the Business of Fashion’s “Face to Face with Luxury Clients” report, “emotional connection is the number one driver of luxury brand desirability in both the US and China – above craftsmanship, heritage and logo recognition”.
The results for the media platform’s latest report in its State of Fashion series come from a survey of more than 2,000 clients, co-analysed by business consultants McKinsey & Company.
The report also says that bespoke service in China “has emerged as the number one driver of exclusivity” and that a focus should turn to the country’s Gen X market, with its strong spending power.
Why is bespoke so popular?
Chinese luxury consumers are now looking beyond familiar collections from major jewellery houses and are instead being drawn to individual designs that make a personal statement.
As Emily Tan of Calla Lily, a Singapore-based bespoke jeweller, points out, most of her clients already have or can afford major luxury brands, “and the next move would be into pursuing more specialised pieces tailored to their collection and taste”.


Big brands will always have their own gravitational pull, their recognised silhouettes, iconic motifs and seasonal campaigns, Hong Kong jewellery designer Austy Lee says. “But, for me as a designer, what truly drives the bespoke market is something far more intimate: the desire for jewellery that carries a person’s story, their character, their soul,” he says.
Currently, 40 per cent of Lee’s business consists of bespoke orders, with commissions ranging from couture headpieces and artistic hairbands to men’s jewellery.
Bespoke jewellery gives them something mass-market brands cannot
Austy Lee, jewellery designer
Lee, who launched his brand almost 10 years ago, is known for blending traditional Chinese aesthetics with contemporary craftsmanship and cultural storytelling. He is also the go-to designer for special cheongsam-inspired pieces.
Rings, earrings and necklaces are core business, but clients often gravitate towards large sculptural earrings and bold, exaggerated bracelets that push high jewellery craftsmanship into more dramatic, couture-level expressions. For example, an heirloom jade bangle can be redesigned into a new piece, such as his Flowervines of Andromeda bangle, hinged and set with diamonds and lilac jade cabochons.


“Bespoke jewellery gives them something mass-market brands cannot: the feeling of being seen, understood and reflected through a one-of-a-kind creation,” Lee says.
His clients include gemstone collectors unsure what to create, and they brainstorm ideas together, or those who begin with rare stones from Lee’s own collection. Some clients commission bespoke wedding or birthday pieces, even gemstone Christmas baubles to hang on their trees.
“Some turn up with specific ideas, but most of my bespoke clients love letting me take the lead,” Lee says. “When clients give me carte blanche, I can push my aesthetic further.”
‘People value new and modern as well as heritage and culture’
New jewellery brand Pen Mane, founded by Vincent Guy-Raffin and Calvin Wang, was established in Hong Kong in 2025. Named after a family summer home on the coast of Brittany, in France, where Guy-Raffin grew up, the company “is intentionally client-centric”.
Personalisation, Guy-Raffin says, “speaks directly to our founding philosophy rather than an add-on service. Our goal has never been to impose a signature look that brands the wearer, but rather to serve as storytellers, translating an individual’s personal history, identity and emotion in a piece that becomes a natural extension of self.”
His experience working with high- and fine-jewellery brands such as Boivin, Dior and Graff has given him an understanding of how markets evolve and how people like to live with their jewellery, and offering bespoke is now key to that.
For the moment, “bespoke” to Guy-Raffin means reinterpreting pieces from existing collections. His work is largely diamond-centric, and so clients bring in coloured gemstones to create a variation of an established silhouette. Like Lee and Tan, he only works with certified, natural stones.
Pen Mane recently won two design awards at The Couture Show in Las Vegas, America’s leading annual jewellery fair. Exhibiting there was an experiment, Wang says, “a meaningful leap into the unknown”. The pair have a community of private collectors in Hong Kong, which they want to expand with retail partners in the US, where there is a large established market of jewellery collecting.


In Singapore, businesswomen place a strong emphasis on bespoke jewellery, and many designers offer this service. For Calla Lily founder-designer Tan, bespoke represents 90 per cent of her business, founded in 2018.
Starting in bespoke design, transforming vintage pieces and loose stones into modern creations, provided momentum for her as a young designer.
“It was very helpful in gaining insights into the various tastes in Singapore, where it is a melting pot of East meets West,” she says. “People value new and modern as well as heritage and culture.”
Her designs currently fall into three categories: modern art deco, nature-inspired and modular travel jewellery, which allow for daily customisation. Some of her clients, she says, “have a vision of what they are after, but just can’t seem to find the right combination for that perfect piece”.
The designers place firm boundaries on the commissions they accept, and none of them would accept a request to replicate another designer’s work.
Their dream commissions, however, are another thing entirely: Lee wants to design a series of haute couture watches, while Guy-Raffin fantasises about resetting the 45.52-carat Hope Diamond, which is on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, in the United States.
As for Tan, “A crown of the finest Paraibas [tourmalines] with water opals and antique-cut diamonds for the late Queen Elizabeth,” she says. “I always admired pictures of her elegance in her youth with her elaborate crowns, and I can just imagine how beautiful it could possibly be.”


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Pieces from brands (from left) Calla Lily, Pen Mane and Austy Lee. Asian luxury consumers are increasingly turning to bespoke jewellery. Photos: Calla Lily, Pen Mane, Austy Lee


Emily Tan, of Calla Lily, a bespoke jeweller in Singapore. Photo: Calla Lily

A neo art deco opal ring by Calla Lily. Photo: Calla Lily

Hong Kong jewellery designer Austy Lee. Photo: courtesy of Austy Lee Art Jewellery

Austy Lee’s Flowervines of Andromeda jade bangle is set with diamonds. Photo: Austy Lee

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Outfits designed by Kit Wan (left) and Zidi at Centrestage. Photo: Hong Kong Fashion Fest 

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Fashion & Beauty

Jewellery with an ‘emotional connection’ is redefining luxury for consumers in mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore


Jewellery with an ‘emotional connection’ is redefining luxury for consumers in mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore.


Jewellery

McKinsey & Company

Graff

Dior

Bespoke jewellery is on the rise in Asia. Why wear what everyone else is wearing?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Jewellery with an ‘emotional connection’ is redefining luxury for consumers in mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore

Jewellery with an ‘emotional connection’ is redefining luxury for consumers in mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore