MAUBOUSSIN (founded 1827)

The French heritage house Mauboussin was founded in Paris in 1827 by artisan jeweler M. Rocher. In the 1940s, it moved its flagship store to Place Vendôme, where it is still located today.

In the early to mid-twentieth century, the company catered to European royalty and Hollywood stars such as Marlene Dietrich, Audrey Hepburn, and Greta Garbo. Their Madison Avenue boutique displays a poster of Dietrich wearing Mauboussin jewels. The 1920s to 1940s are considered to be the heritage houses’ glory days. Of note were their Art Deco creations—in 1925, Mauboussin won the Grand Prize for jewelry at Paris’s International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts. Its Art Deco jewelry, incorporating platinum, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, became a staple look. In the 1930s and 1940s, they teamed up with the American firm Trabert & Hoeffer to become Trabert & Hoeffer-Mauboussin. During this time, they produced retro jewels in 18 karat yellow gold with large colored semiprecious stones.

The brand is well known in France, where there are now about thirty boutiques and hundreds of points of sale. It also has a strong presence in Singapore, Japan, Morocco, and Dubai.