Style Edit: Buccellati CEO Nicolas Luchsinger on the Italian house’s handcrafted jewellery

Italian jeweller Buccellati is one of those “if you know, you know” brands that could only have come out of Milan. Much like the city where it was established in 1919, Buccellati is an acquired taste, a brand for connoisseurs and lovers of the finer things in life. While in recent years Buccellati has experienced rapid growth and increased awareness – especially after being acquired in 2019 by Richemont, the owner of jewellers such as Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels – the house has managed to retain its niche appeal and rarefied image associated with Italian aristocracy and the upper echelons of European society. In 2024 Richemont appointed Nicolas Luchsinger, a company veteran who previously worked as president of Asia-Pacific at Van Cleef & Arpels, as CEO of Buccellati. A hands-on executive with an eye for detail and a jewellery collector himself, Luchsinger believes that Buccellati’s unique positioning is an asset, as he explained in a recent interview in Paris, where the house unveiled its latest high jewellery collection, Serenissima, a homage to the city of Venice. “Speaking of the strategy of Buccellati, the challenge we face is that as you develop the maison – you open more stores, you do advertising campaigns – at the same time, you want to keep it very niche,” he says. “It’s something we really would like to keep. “What is also great with Buccellati is the style. It’s a very specific style, which is very recognisable. It’s not that you recognise a model – you recognise a style when somebody is wearing a ring or a bracelet.” Unlike most jewellery brands, which tend to focus on instantly recognisable fine jewellery lines, turning them into signatures – like Alhambra at Van Cleef & Arpels, Love and Juste un Clou at Cartier, and Quatre at Boucheron – Buccellati doesn’t rely on any particular range, an aspect of the company that Luchsinger believes is an advantage rather than a drawback. “When you do a survey among clients, they are often unable to tell you the name of the line but they say, ‘Oh, I recognise that – it’s Buccellati,’” Luchsinger says. “I don’t want to be dependent on an icon. It’s dangerous. And perhaps if you oversell your icon, people will be bored. We have a lot of different lines like Macri, Opera, Rombi …” It’s clear that Luchsinger is doing something right. Speak to any jewellery aficionado in a luxury hub such as Hong Kong and they will tell you that the Buccellati fine jewellery pieces they’ve had their eye on are almost always sold out – “a good problem to have”, Luchsinger says. It’s because Buccellati still relies on traditional craftsmanship for all its creations, made in workshops in northern Italy for fine jewellery and in its Milan ateliers for high jewellery. “We are increasing production, but it’s complicated because it’s all handmade,” he adds. While most jewellery houses release at least two high jewellery collections per year, Buccellati only launches one every other year, due to the complexity involved in making the pieces. With its baroque and Renaissance influences, the maison stands out for its engraving techniques and sculptural handiwork – both visible at a glance in the lacelike creations that come out of its ateliers. Founder Mario Buccellati’s grandchildren – Maria Cristina and Andrea – remain deeply involved in the business, working alongside Luchsinger, who is very happy to be collaborating with descendants of the founding family, including fourth-generation member Lucrezia, who is based in the US. “The most important thing is to be true to yourself,” said Maria Cristina when asked about Buccellati’s positioning in the world of jewellery. “Our style began with my grandfather and we stuck to it over the decades. My brother is the designer like my grandfather and my father, so we always kept those values and the style and the design intact – always within the family. That has been our strength: to keep our style, without following trends. Everything is handmade in our high jewellery ateliers in Milan, and our style is different from all the other brands and instantly recognisable.” Andrea, who oversees design and the production of all the creations that come out of Buccellati’s workshops, adds that keeping this savoir faire intact is not easy, but Buccellati operates a school to train artisans in order to preserve this knowledge. “These days young people are rediscovering handiwork,” he says. “Back in the day, in the 80s, everyone wanted to become a banker; then everyone wanted to be Bill Gates. Now [they want to be] influencers, but many young people are rediscovering artisanship and craftsmanship because it’s like being an artist.” Another important aspect of Buccellati is its silverware, a category that’s been very successful in recent years, thanks in part to the rise in popularity of entertaining at home – both in real life and on social media. Andrea explains that in the 19th and 20th centuries, most jewellers made tableware and silverware alongside pieces in precious metals and stones, but they eventually discontinued those lines due to lower margins and the space they took up in boutiques. “We never lost this art at Buccellati, and our artisans are very skilled. It’s the art of entertaining – of decorating with trays, plates and vases that are like artworks. We’ve kept it alive thanks to our artisans. It’s a lost art, but we preserved it over the decades.” Luchsinger explains that Buccellati works with interior designers to showcase its silverware, which is especially popular in the US, and that clients are drawn to the homeware for its exquisite design and craftsmanship, regardless of the objects’ intrinsic value. When the brand holds an event for high jewellery clients, for instance, dinner is served on Buccellati silverware to create this whole universe around it. When Luchsinger joined Buccellati over two years ago, he was pleasantly surprised to find that many of the brand’s top high jewellery clients are European – from countries such as Italy, France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland – a rarity in the niche world of high jewellery, which is normally dominated by VIP customers from the US and Asia. The Asia-Pacific region, however, is very important to the brand and has experienced rapid growth recently. Last year Buccellati hosted an exhibition in Shanghai, “The Prince of Goldsmiths: Buccellati Rediscovering the Classics”, charting the history of the brand and the evolution of its style through 250 high jewellery and silverware creations. Buccellati has had a long presence in Hong Kong, having opened its first store well before the Richemont acquisition. “[Mario’s son] Gianmaria Buccellati opened a store in Hong Kong a long time ago at The Landmark but with a partner, and then the store closed and reopened, so Hong Kong society always knew about Buccellati,” he says. “The awareness is already there. Hong Kong today is very successful so we increased the size of our store in Prince’s Building.” Rather than opening more boutiques, Luchsinger is focusing on enlarging and enhancing existing ones, also in order to better showcase the brand’s silverware. While social media and advertising play a key role in increasing global awareness, don’t expect Buccellati to go the Hollywood or influencer route any time soon. Maintaining its high-end and culture-driven approach is key to the success of the brand, Luchsinger explains. The CEO has grand ambitions for the house, which is often dubbed the new Van Cleef & Arpels among industry insiders, although Luchsinger shies away from facile comparisons. “It’s a compliment obviously,” he says. “But it’s not correct because of our limitations due to production. We are working very hard to increase production, but everything is handmade in our high jewellery workshop in Milan. I hope one day to be able to have one high jewellery collection per year, but scarcity and production are our issues.” The brand’s momentum has only just begun but Luchsinger is taking a gradual approach to growth, with the blessing of Richemont, a company that likes to take the long view and preserve the identity of the brands it acquires, like it did with Van Cleef & Arpels and watchmaker Vacheron Constantin, for instance. “Richemont believes in the DNA of the brands it acquires; they want to protect them and preserve them while also expanding them, so things have changed but it’s been great because they’ve given us great help from a logistics and back-end point of view,” says Andrea. “But when it comes to quality they want to maintain what Buccellati is and they don’t ask us to make more or to use machines; they don’t want to have exponential growth just for the sake of it. [Richemont CEO] Johann Rupert said to us when they came [to acquire us], ‘We don’t need machines and we don’t want to double profits in one year, but we want to keep Buccellati Buccellati in 20 years.’”

Style Edit: Buccellati CEO Nicolas Luchsinger on the Italian house’s handcrafted jewellery

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The Swiss executive tells Style about the maison’s new Venetian-inspired Serenissima collection and its devotion to artisanal excellence

The Swiss executive tells Style about the maison’s new Venetian-inspired Serenissima collection and its devotion to artisanal excellence