Christine Chen on building a Chinese luxury brand with Serendipity Paris

Add Serendipity Paris by Christine Chen, the Paris-based but Shanghai born jeweler, to that narrow but important mix, a luxury Chinese marque with a unique point of view.

In the rarefied world of luxury, one can count the number of prestige Chinese brands on one hand, like star jeweler Wallace Chan or art jeweler Cindy Chou, both based in Hong Kong, or Shang Xia, the luxe apparel brand owned by Italy’s wealthiest family, the Agnellis.
 
Though this past haute joaillerie season in the French capital revealed a new entrant – Serendipity Paris from Christine Chen, a blend of Chinese heritage and French savoir faire launched in 2017.

Presented inside her showroom at 16 Place Vendome, her jewelry blends Art Deco necklaces, yellow sapphire Gingko brooches or Fountain of Versailles earrings in a mix of faceted apatite and diamond briolettes. In a five-day presentation during the French couture season, she also presented an extraordinary Colombian emerald and diamond Art Deco necklace and earrings priced at €8 million. While her new summer collection called Riding the Waves featured charming earrings made in mini spray caps of diamonds, lapis lazuli beads and South Sea Pearls.
 
Her inspirations are many: from classical furniture to oil paintings, while a tiara was inspired by one of her three daughters’ love of the Disney movie Frozen. Which led to a heart-shaped Snow Queen tiara with a heart shaped aquamarine, embraced by diamonds and graced by pearls both freshwater and South Sea. Holidays on yachts in Caribbean and winters in Antigua and Barbuda inspiring the latter.
 
Serendipity Paris is very much the brainchild of Chen, who first became obsessed by gemstones growing up in Shanghai admiring her grandmother’s Chinese jewelry. Climbing a chair to take down from a top shelf a native redwood jewelry box in which grandmother’s precious items were stored.
 
“The chair was teetering over, and I was afraid I might drop the box, but I suddenly realized grandma was behind me, smiling,” recalls Chen over lunch in the Ritz.
 
Gently, grandma kindly unveiled the beauty of her rare stones, favorite jade objects, jewelry combs and intricate cuts a love was born, and a career path was marked out.

The son of a college professor father famed for his English language textbooks and a department store manager mother, Chen went on to study journalism in Shanghai International University, becoming a front-of-camera reporter for Shanghai Oriental TV network in 2008.
 
Though she had already bought her first stone using money she earned from translating a Disney kids book into Chinese. A $2,000 trillion-cut pink spinel which she had turned into a ring that was much admired by friends, leading to the first orders from friends and fans. Within a couple of years, she was purchasing a $400,000 blue 20 carat Burma sapphire for a client and she has been on an upward trajectory ever since.
 
“I was happy. I suddenly realized, ‘wow! I am good,’” recalled Chen, who began by producing Eternity rings for an extended circle.
 
“I believe that jewelry can transport you, make you feel like someone different, like a princess. You can like yourself more at that moment. I was raised a single daughter in a very traditional Chinese family. Be a good student, excel at work, be the perfect daughter. I am driven hard, probably from my mother. I was never into teenage rebellion. The most rebellious thing I did was to come to Paris and stay with my husband!” she laughs. Referring to meeting her husband and fellow Chinese David He, at a mutual friend’s wedding in the Shangri La hotel in Paris.
 
“I had this immediate feeling that something special was happening,” who named her brand after that moment of serendipity.
 
After meeting David, she moved to Paris and then began studying at two of Switzerland’s most prestigious colleges – the famed Academie Gubelin school of precious gems in Lucerne, and Institution SSEF in Basel, specializing in colored gemstone testing. Though she was already extremely knowledgeable from studying auction houses; histories of Chinese and Western jewelry; and buying stones.
 
“I have a good intuition about what to buy and when. Like I bought Paraiba tourmalines when they were very low in price. Nobody thought they could become more expensive than a ruby, but they are now,” notes Chen, who like her jewelry is pretty, poised, polished and a little unexpected.
 
These days she shops for stones in Antwerp, Geneva and Hong Kong – and works with dealers with New York, Bangkok, Sri Lanka. Chen clearly has a great sense of gemstones, and this year her brand will breach €15 million in turnover. And expects double digit annual growth in her self-sustaining business, which she owns 100%. She is a feature at Paris haute couture shows like Dior and Chanel, and like those haute gamme ladies is discreet about her customers. While in Cannes for the festival, Serendipity dressed Coco Rocha and Michelle Yeoh.
 
Asked to define her DNA, she calls Serendipity, “Romantic, feminine, strong, independent and unique.”
 
Like properly serious jewelry afficionados, Chen reveres Paris-based Joel Rosenthal of JAR’s as the greatest contemporary jeweler. And she appreciates jewelry is a slow-build business when to comes to brand creation, doubly so given Chen’s obsession with buying ideal stones, and creating true high-quality pieces.
 
“Having a store is a great window, but right now I prefer to invest my resources in my product. Plenty of young girls have passions for clothes and accessories, but I never had. I wanted to buy things with value that grow in value and make you feel better,” she concludes.