Spend any time on TikTok trying into Scandinavian “It” lady model and Sophie Bille Brahe’s advantageous jewellery is certain to point out up. Her creations exude a contemporary, ethereal storytelling that’s quintessentially Danish — a bit surprising, whimsical but minimal and uniquely her.
Not that she is completely underneath the radar — she has a mixture of her “dream women” carrying items, together with Rihanna, Madonna, Alicia Vikander and extra. She sells in a spread of well-known jewellery boutiques globally, however the model retains a nicely maintained if-you-know-you-know mystique.
That could be about to vary along with her first U.S. boutique on New York’s Higher East Aspect opening in November, anchoring her model in a market she studies is her quickest rising. It’s a brand new chapter that has been practically three years within the making. “It’s been the best transfer for a really very long time,” she stated throughout an interview from her Copenhagen studio. “However it’s for me, it’s wanted to be one thing the place I felt it was fully the best area.”
Touchdown at 1000 Madison Avenue, she is in esteemed firm, a stone’s throw from each main luxurious boutique uptown. Her clientele is certain to find her now. “I didn’t wish to go away,” she stated with amusing of the area she selected.
Sophie Bille Brahe in her Copenhagen Studio.
Courtesy Sophie Bille Brahe
By appointment solely, the shop will open on Nov. 13 with a discreet door, small plaque and name button at avenue degree, sustaining her cloaked attract. The boutique is located on the second flooring, some extent of distinction that labored nicely for her Copenhagen flagship. “It doesn’t actually work when there’s lots of people searching round on the similar time,” she stated of her Denmark retailer. “So, you enter a really curated, very private area,” which is strictly what she needed for her first U.S retailer.
Many stated she was out of her thoughts to not have the shop at avenue degree, “however for me, I feel this has been our recipe on how we do enterprise, and I really feel like we have to do it precisely how I really feel it suits the jewellery.”
Bille Brahe has been quietly testing the market Stateside for years with a touring showroom idea, exhibiting at luxurious resorts by appointment. “Our shoppers, they wish to have a particular expertise when procuring,” she defined. Her boutique can be an extension of that idea, telling the total breadth of her storytelling by jewellery, she stated.
Sophie Bille Brahe’s Copenhagen boutique.
Courtesy Sophie Bille Brahe
Purchasers can be greeted with a Dinesen wood flooring setting the Danish minimalist temper. Furnishings are by Børge Mogensen — “all an elevated model of what each Dane has a reminiscence of consuming dinner on,” Bille Brahe stated. She selected an especially uncommon Poul Henningsen lamp and designed a cloud desk and a shell motif for area. “For my Copenhagen boutique, I needed it to be like a Scandinavian palazzo, and it’s the identical we’re doing for New York,” she stated, including that she selected pearly lace white curtains for the home windows, casting the boutique in a mushy gentle.
“I’ve all the time been a giant fan of Peggy Guggenheim and in her home in Venice you’ll be able to see footage of zebra all over,” she stated of the accents that add a little bit of zing on a Mats Theselius chair and couch, together with Poul Kjærholm chairs.
“For us to compete, it must really feel like every little ingredient has been put into this area in a method that makes full sense for me,” she defined of her world constructing. Instances will home her items based mostly on her “households” together with Ocean, Ensemble, Lettre de Lumière, Coeur, Escargot and Fleur, with a yet-to-be-debuted piece based mostly on her signature tennis bracelets that can be distinctive to the New York location.
As a result of the store can be appointment-only, friends can be greeted with a considerate curation of items based mostly on their want. When on the town, Bille Brahe will provide a novel bespoke expertise, “so our shoppers can come and be part of the design course of,” alongside the creator. Bridal is a giant a part of her present enterprise; she has an unique bridal assortment that includes distinctive fancy cuts launching in February in New York.
U.S. shoppers, she stated, are inclined to gravitate to extra basic, heavier, diamond items. Bestsellers till now have been her tennis collier necklaces, with basic iterations adopted by types “the place it has been twisted with stone [diamond] hearts graduating in sizes” being standouts.
Sophie Bille Brahe’s items and lose diamonds.
Courtesy Sophie Bille Brahe’
Completely utilizing white diamonds in her work, she is “drawn to the purity” of the basic gemstone. “For me, there’s a very clear hyperlink between the sky and the bottom on the subject of jewellery. Visually diamonds remind me of stars, they’ve the identical glisten, and so they provide the similar feeling, and but their creation is so tied to the earth.”
The shop features a number of glassware and jewellery packing containers, too, issues she sees as “a prolongation of the jewellery and a real reflection of my universe.“
“The U.S. buyer makes use of jewellery differently than Europeans. It’s used to mark a number of issues throughout your yr life and I feel they don’t seem to be afraid to stack so much. I additionally suppose [there’s] the private ingredient. They love that the jewellery tells a narrative,” she defined, highlighting her Lettre de Lumière assortment, “which might characterize your husband or your little one. People find it irresistible.”
Bille Brahe skilled as a goldsmith, a part of an historic custom in Denmark that takes four-and-a-half years. “I wanted a craft to one way or the other help my concepts that if no one favored what I used to be doing, then I may work in any case,” she stated.
It’s a degree of tactile storytelling that comes by in her creations. She went on to attend London’s Royal Faculty of Artwork, with plans to maneuver to Paris and work for another person, however an opportunity assembly with Julie Gilhart, then at Barneys New York, modified all of it. “She was like, ‘Sophie, you will have a expertise, you will have an obligation to do your personal jewellery.’” She launched along with her Croissant De Lune in 2007 and has grown from there.
“For me, it’s one way or the other about really cleansing my headspace,” she stated of making her private method that resonates with prospects. “It’s similar to feeling what’s inside me.”
“Once I look again on the collections, I can all the time see precisely how I used to be feeling in the mean time. So it’s sort of, I feel, actually private in a method, and it’s my method of understanding my environment.”
