Twenty or so years ago, luxury tycoons Francois Pinault, Bernard Arnault and Johann Rupert each made a bet on a jewelry brand with a historic flagship on Place Vendôme, the jewelry mecca of Paris. They were respectively Boucheron, Chaumet and Van Cleef & Arpels (VCA).
Rupert, chairman of the Richemont group, spent a couple of years acquiring VCA, reuniting assets family by family and region by region, to bring the company and its archives under one roof – just as his father Anton had done 20 years earlier with Cartier. Today VCA generates more than twice the sales of Chaumet and Boucheron put together.
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