Luxury Webblog Spot

Tiffany and Bulgari live up the street and Cartier is just down the block. Now, Van Cleef & Arpels has joined the Michigan Avenue jewelry crowd.

The event is long overdue, according to Van Cleef’s chief executive officer Nathalie Guedj of the Chicago store, which quietly opened its doors on May 12. This is the fifth store in the U.S for Van Cleef, part of the luxury conglomerate Compagnie Financiere de Richemont.

“Chicago is one of the largest and most important cities in the country and we should have been there long ago,” Guedj said.

The calm, salonlike interior is outfitted with salmon carpeting and slubby silk-covered chairs. The long, narrow 1,100-square-foot space features several glass cases that hold signature examples of the watches and floral-inspired jeweled brooches, necklaces, bracelets and rings the Parisian jeweler has been known for since its beginning in 1906.

And one such case holds one-of-a-kind pieces, including a platinum-and-diamond flower brooch for $485,000.

PARIS — Bulgari has a new jewelry box.

Its new 3,000-square-foot unit, on the upscale Avenue Montaigne shopping artery, replaces a smaller shop the Italian luxury jeweler and retailer first opened on the same street in the Plaza Athenee hotel in the early Eighties.

“Now we have more room for accessories and the jewelry can be presented in a larger, more luxurious way,” said Francesco Trapani, Bulgari chief executive officer, in an interview at the shop, which features clean lines and sycamore, glass and bronze fixtures.

Bulgari also operates a shop on the prestigious Place Vendome, as well as a shop-in-shop at the Printemps department store.

“France, and Paris in particular, is a very important growth market for us,” he said, adding that the Left Bank is another potential location for Bulgari. “This shop is part of our effort to concentrate on growth in France.”

To celebrate the new store, Bulgari hosted a dance party at the cavernous Theatre de L’Empire. Boy George manned the turntables to entertain revelers, including Claudia Schiffer and newly appointed Chloe designer Phoebe Philo.

DALLAS — De Boulle is moving up in the world.

The independent fine jewelry and watch retailer moved from its tiny, 1,300-square-foot shop into a grand Mediterranean-style home, tripling its jewelry inventory and adding a new fine art gallery.

Reconstructed from a single-level shell for an undisclosed sum, the new store, with its two-story pale-yellow stucco building, slate mansard roof and residential-style interior, is intended to establish de Boulle as a brand name that can draw clientele not just to its store from other Texas cities, but also to its new Web site at deboulle.com.

Within its 13,500 square feet are 24 luxury watch collections, a new gallery of estate jewelry including 500 pieces from Fred Leighton and the store’s own precious jewelry, specializing in large diamonds and a cluster of designer lines.

The luxurious new digs were made possible by the success of the 18-year-old enterprise in its former location just down Preston Road, where sales reached $13 million last year. Denis Boulle, president and owner, believes he can now easily reach $15 million annually, but is aiming for $20 million. After 10 days in the new location, in the heart of the affluent Park Cities neighborhood, sales doubled compared to the same period a year ago.

Pearls and pins have sold well, including a $45,000 strand of golden South Sea pearls and a $15,000 diamond, ruby and enamel frog pin. Trendy pave diamond hoop earrings are bestsellers, and estate pieces have been warmly received — a dozen were sold in the first 10 days — at $3,000 to $20,000.

“With our partnership with Fred Leighton, Dallas has never seen a collection of estate jewelry like this,” said Boulle.

Concentrated on the second level, the art gallery is mostly 18th-and 19th century French and English oil paintings, which Gilbert Rebillet, de Boulle’s chief operating officer and president of the fine art division, also plans to use to stage sculpture shows and book signings.