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DESIGNER ROUNDUP
SHAHPOUR JAHAN
Royal engagements
Pleasing princesses is jeweler Shahpour Jahan’s specialty
Not long ago, Shahpour Jahan, a jeweler based in
Geneva, took an order from a young Saudi princess
who wanted a necklace “she could wear every day.”
A diamond-laden jewel anchored by a 9.5-carat fancy pink
pear-shaped stone is what he created for her.
With clientele drawn from the royal families of the Persian
Gulf, the Jahan family business, a seventh-generation affair
that dates back to Tehran in the 1800s, has a different relationship
with its customers than do most jewelers.
“A person has a doctor, a lawyer, and we consider ourselves
an advisor,” Shahpour, the company’s creative director, says.
“We give them a service. We take their old jewelry that has
no value, and we update it.”
When there is a major wedding, it’s not just the bride who
is expected to shine. Mothers and grandmothers are also
draped in jewels and will often bring their old pieces into
one of the company’s three boutiques in Geneva, Riyadh or
Jeddah to get a fresh re-working. A Jahan design album
with a collection of dull photos documenting these quintessentially
1980s jewels (so passé looking they might as well
be in neon) is a testament to this. Shahpour then re-imagines
the pieces, sometimes as stylish scarf necklaces or as
long cascades of stones.
The emphasis, it’s clear, is on the latter. “The real value to
us as jewelers is in the stones,” Shahpour says. “Like land,
antiques, paintings, the point is you have jewelry that will look
good years from now. It’s not supposed to be like fashion.”
From a floral collar of sapphire and diamond roses to the
suite of almond-sized Colombian emeralds about to be set
into a diamond and white gold parure, the classic jewels
46 l Basel 2009 l COUTURE International Jeweler
that are Jahan’s bread and butter begin at 200,000 Swiss
francs (about $175,000 at current exchange rates) and top
out around 2 million Swiss francs.
Jahan’s singular commitment to providing a traditional,
albeit modernized, selection of jewels to customers who
have patronized the store for decades has placed it in a
good position to ride out the current economic downturn.
Based in Geneva since 1980, when Shahpour’s father began
using Swiss workshops to manufacture the jewelry he sold
in Iran, the company has a reputation for creating sumptuous
parures of the highest quality.
“Of course you feel it,” Shahpour says of the credit crunch.
“But high-level pieces like that always keep their value. If
people are getting married, we are good.”
In order to accommodate the gift-buying proliclivities of
clients who hail from the Gulf region, the company also
stocks a reasonably priced selection of glam watches and
perfumes, all on display in the Geneva boutique.
Situated in a prime location on the city’s famed Rue du
Rhône, the store opened in 1995 and was expanded and
renovated two years ago into a stylish black-and-white
showroom of 200 square meters. Neighbors include practically
every major luxury name in the watch and jewelry
business, but that doesn’t faze Shahpour.
“We like that we have competitors,” he says. “When you
go into a garden, you don’t just want to see roses.” ■
Bridal boom Shahpour Jahan, the seventh generation of the Jahan
family business, has what many would consider the perfect plan to ride
out this year’s economic turbulence: If the royal familes of the Persian Gulf
who make up his clientele continue to get married, “we are good,” he says.