One of the two publicly traded luxury jewels in the Middle Kingdom—alongside the Moutai spirits brand—Chow Tai Fook began its meteoric rise as a gold merchant in Guangzhou (Canton) in 1929 before establishing itself as a leading jeweler in Southeast Asia. At the end of September, during the Bonjour Brand Forum, an event dedicated to Franco-Chinese cooperation, the company’s Chief Brand Officer confirmed its ambitions to establish a presence in France.
Unknown to the French, Chow Tai Fook—owned by the Chinese conglomerate Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd.—has entered the top 10 most valuable luxury brands in 2022. It has even become the tenth largest luxury company in the world, according to Deloitte’s Global Powers of Luxury Goods 2021 study.
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Convinced of its legitimacy in the field of prestigious craftsmanship and determined to resonate with the aspirations of younger generations, the Hong Kong-based company embarked last year on a major plan to modernize its image by revamping its logo and making key appointments.
Bolstered by these changes, the company is no longer hiding its ambition to establish itself at the heart of European luxury and fine jewelry: Paris.
European and French ambitions
Known throughout Southeast Asia, the Chinese jewelry house Chow Tai Fook has 8,000 stores, mainly based in mainland China and Hong Kong. The brand has no intention of stopping there, as it made clear on September 25 at the Bonjour Brand Forum, held in the prestigious setting of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Attending this event dedicated to innovation, design, and Franco-Chinese cooperation, Alan Chan, Chief Brand Officer of Chow Tai Fook, unveiled the broad outlines of an “international expansion,” particularly in Europe.
Alan Chan intends to “bring the beauty of China to the world through jewelry.” He believes that it is by deeply rooting itself in Chinese cultural DNA and expressing it in a contemporary way that the brand can appeal to international consumers without denying its identity. He cites as examples Chow Tai Fook’s jewelry creations, inspired by Chinese characters, as well as collections developed in collaboration with the Forbidden City.
Considering that “beauty is above all a language,” the brand seeks to find cultural bridges between East and West. This approach gives the impression of an Asian response to Western incursions via Shang Xia (Hermès), launched in 2010, and Qeelin (Kering) in 2004.
Chow Tai Fook has thus expressed its clear desire to establish itself in France, a market considered strategic for its international expansion.
However, this project requires a certain amount of preparation, as the French market appears to be highly competitive, with the presence of many world-renowned brands.
The brand was keen to participate once again in the Bonjour Brand Forum because the event had previously enabled Chow Tai Fook to commission a French designer to create a collection.
Among the greats
Chow Tai Fook Jewellery is a jewelry and gold store (in Chinese: 珠寶金行 金行; “gold store”) founded by Chow Chi-yuen in 1929, who developed the brand in the 1930s by expanding it to Macau and Hong Kong. His son-in-law, Cheng Yu-tung, took over the company in 1956 and it is still owned by his descendants today.
The company revolutionized the jewelry industry by launching 999.9 gold jewelry in 1956, a guarantee of purity that was subsequently adopted as the industry standard in Hong Kong. Chow Tai Fook has since expanded into diamonds and other jewelry and remains positioned at the high end of the market in terms of both image and price.
Driven by growing Chinese demand for gold products amid economic uncertainty—which, according to a Tmall study, accounts for 60% of jewelry consumption in the country—Chow Tai Fook is posting solid performance. In its 2024 fiscal year, the Chinese group Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd. (owner of the Chow Tai Fook, Hearts on Fire, Enzo, and Monologue brands) saw its revenue jump 14.8% year-on-year to $13.94 billion (HK$108.7 billion), while its core operating profit grew 28.9% year-on-year to $1.55 billion (HK$12.1 billion).
As the only Chinese brand to be included in Deloitte’s 2022 ranking of the world’s most valuable luxury brands alongside Louis Vuitton and Chanel, Chow Tai Fook has since made a number of changes.
The revamping of its identity demonstrates its desire to appear as a heritage brand with many standards borrowed from European luxury. Thus, in 2024, the year of its 95th anniversary, the brand added the words “since 1929” to its modernized logo, emphasizing its date of creation.
Most notably, the House has enlisted the services of renowned Chinese jewelry designer Nicholas Lieou to oversee Chow Tai Fook’s Haute Joaillerie collections. A graduate of Jewelry Design at Central St Martins, the Royal College of Arts in London, and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, Lieou previously designed collections for Alexis Bittar, Georg Jensen, and Louis Vuitton before being appointed Director of Design for Fine Jewelry and Custom Design at Tiffany & Co. in 2015, prior to the American jeweler’s acquisition by the LVMH group in 2019. A model of multiculturalism, the Hong Kong native spent his childhood and adolescence in Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, and San Francisco. In 2019, he left New York to return to his homeland and develop his own brand, Mr. Lieou.
Responsible for developing new product lines for Chow Tai Fook, Nicholas Lieou notably managed the launch of the “CTF Rouge” collection. Shortly after its launch in April 2024, the collection generated sales of 500 million yuan ($70 million) in mainland China. Inspired by the auspicious color red and the symbol of good fortune “福” (meaning “good fortune” in Chinese), the collection incorporates elements from red brick walls, which represent the “home.” Celebrating Chinese culture, craftsmanship, and innovation, it features natural diamonds, pearls, enamel, and gold.
In another typically European move, Chow Tai Fook has chosen to establish itself as a cultural vector by partnering with an iconic cultural institution, namely the Palace Museum in Beijing, the ancient and legendary Forbidden City. The “Chow Tai Fook Palace Museum” collection was inspired by the national treasures and cultural relics preserved in the museum to create designs that highlight three auspicious symbols: drums, butterflies, and stone lions.
Finally, the jewelry brand is highly committed to preserving and passing on its expertise. To maintain the expertise of its studio of 400 artisans, Chow Tai Fook has established partnerships with universities, designed in-house training, and developed a talent academy.
Over the next four years, the brand plans to renovate all of its stores and enhance its image through new openings, such as its 1,260 m² flagship store spread over five floors in Shanghai. Officially inaugurated in May during the city’s “May 5 Shopping Festival,” this first modernized store will enable the jewelry house to fulfill its mission: “to become the leading jewelry brand and trusted partner in the eyes of every generation.”
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Featured photo: © Chow Tai Fook
