De Beers has opened the third U.S. boutique for its high-end De Beers Jewellers brand—at the Bal Harbour Shops in Miami-adjacent Bal Harbour, Fla.
The 600-square-foot boutique is focused on the brand’s high jewelry pieces and collections. Several pieces in the store are valued at more than $1 million, including the Soothing Lotus necklace ($1.3 million) with its 6 ct. pear-cut center stone and additional diamonds (153.4 cts. t.w.) set in white, rose, and yellow gold. And the Talisman Wonder ($1.5 million) that boasts 110 rough and 580 polished diamonds (271 cts. t.w.), which, according to the company, took 10 years to source.
“We are very proud to celebrate the opening within the most renowned and elegant mall in Florida,” said Francois Delage, CEO of De Beers Jewellers, in a prepared statement. “While we recognize the rise and importance of e-commerce, nothing compares to the physical reaction and impact of seeing exceptional diamonds with your own eyes. We look forward to welcoming our U.S. and international clients to share this intimate and informative moment with us in our Bal Harbour location.”
De Beers feted its new store at the Bal Harbour Shops with an art-inspired event at Le Sirenuse at the Four Seasons Surfside on April 10. Miami-based DJ Yissel played at the event with violinist Siobhán Cronin.
And the diamond company has released a limited-edition cover for its De Beers Assouline book to toast its new association with Miami. The nature-inspired cover was a collaboration with Argentine-American artist Deon Rubi, a fixture in Miami’s art scene whose work has been featured at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami.
Bal Harbour Shops, a collection of ultra-high-end stores including the likes of Graff and Balenciaga, routinely tops the list of highest sales-per-square-foot centers in the country—in part due to its sizable out-of-town clientele: affluent shoppers who fly in from Central America and South America.
For luxury retailers, the Shops is a hot ticket. Companies often wait years to procure their dream storefront at the open-air mall.
In Green Street Advisors’ 2016 report on the top 10 malls in the United States by sales (its latest), the 520,000-square-foot Shops took the number one spot, with $3,185 in sales per square foot. For comparison, the Shops’ local rival, Aventura Mall, came in fifth place, with $1,595 in sales per square foot, and the average for U.S. malls was less than $1,000.
Top: Inside the new De Beers Jewellers boutique at the Shops at Bal Harbour (all photos courtesy of De Beers)
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