Six Parisian Female-Led Jewelry Businesses Launch Off Vend?me Event
STEP ASIDE: Did you know that within the space of two streets near Paris’ Place Vend?me there are six female-led independent jewelry brands and stores?
If you didn’t, you’re exactly the reason why they launched Off Vend?me, a three-day showcase geared at showing how vibrant the contemporary independent fine jewelry scene is.
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Through Saturday, the six brands taking part in the operation have come together to offer cocktail events and workshops offering anything from personalized engraving and complimentary piercings, to nail art or creating a custom enamel color.
“The story started when I went to see Amélie [Huynh, who founded silver-and-diamond specialist Statement] because I heard that she had opened her store. Having had mined for a decade in the area, I’m something of the ‘neighborhood elder’ and she told me ‘we should do something because we’re steps away from each other,” said Stéphanie Roger, founder of multibrand jewelry retailer White Bird, whose first store is located on Rue du Mont-Thabor.
As other independent jewelry labels started to set up shop in the streets around Place Vend?me, she noticed that over time, it was driving traffic up in her store.
“It’s fun to see that there are little clusters by activity that are being created,” said the retailer, who noticed that around her second store, on the Left Bank, a similar concentration of independent jewelry labels was happening. “When people want to buy jewelry, they have these areas as starting points to shop.”
Huynh was keen on the idea, having set up shop in 2020, when retail was flagging due to the pandemic. “The first thing I thought was that it was great to see so many female-led jewelry businesses,” she said.
It also felt like a much-needed opportunity to infuse some energy into a neighborhood that had been strongly impacted by several years of weekend demonstrations and then the closure of much of Rue de Rivoli to motorized traffic.
When the pair started talking about the idea, four other neighbors quickly wanted in: designers Charlotte Chesnais and Pascale Monvoisin; Marie Poniatowski, who aims to democratize everyday wear of gold and diamonds with her label Stone, and Dorothée Contour, who founded ethical-gold specialist Jem.
“All six of us are within a stone’s throw of each other. It’s felt interesting to show that even though we might talk to the same clientele, we can still associate together because we all brought different things to the market when launching our brands,” she continued, saying that this had translated into practical notions for the showcase, like Charlotte Chesnais designing its logo.
Plans are already in works to turn Off Vend?me into an annual rendez-vous. For future editions, the brands hope others will join them, to extend the circuit and turn the pop-up event into a neighborhood-wide opportunity to network and who knows, perhaps even attract their illustrious neighbors over.
“If [those] brands come to see what we’ve done with Off Vend?me, it’s great, too,” said Huynh.
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