Since taking the creative helm at Boucheron in 2011, Claire Choisne has built a reputation for questioning what “precious” really means, whether through unconventional materials, radical minimalism, or technical feats that border on the improbable. With Nom : Boucheron Prénom : Frédéric, the maison’s 2026 Histoire de Style High Jewelry collection, she turns her attention inward. Rather than stage a conventional retrospective, Choisne constructs a portrait in four monumental acts, reframing founder Frédéric Boucheron as a provocateur whose instincts still feel startlingly current. The result is not nostalgia, but tension between rigor and fluidity, architecture and drape, permanence and transformation, and a reminder that true heritage only survives when it continues to evolve.
This collection reads almost like a portrait rather than a retrospective. When you began imagining Frédéric Boucheron as a character rather than a historical figure, what aspects of his personality or mindset felt most alive to you today?
For this Histoire de Style collection, I wanted to tell, through 4 masterpieces, the story of Frédéric Boucheron, this pioneer who rarely sought the limelight, yet whose genius is manifest in his creations – thus, I am proud to unveil the “Nom: Boucheron Prénom: Frédéric” High Jewelry collection. The first jeweler to open a store on Place Vendôme, he defied convention to write a new chapter in Parisian jewelry. He turned his beloved living nature – in all its imperfect, true-to-life realism – into his own artistic language. As the son of a draper, he took a distinctive approach to how jewelry can adorn the body. The individual was always center stage for him, and his creations were designed to meet the aspirations of their era, challenging the conventions of his time and creating pieces that women could put on by themselves. This year, I chose to focus on him because his unique story has totally shaped our beautiful Maison and feels timeless to me.
Frédéric Boucheron was known for challenging conventions rather than preserving them. How do you translate that spirit of disruption into contemporary high jewelry without slipping into nostalgia?
I see this innovation and disruption as a duty instituted by Frédéric Boucheron, who was the first jeweler to use rock crystal or to create a necklace without a clasp: to push back the know how limits of High Jewelry. By continuing to innovate, I am not feeling nostalgic but rather enthusiastic to perpetuate the philosophy of Frédéric Boucheron.
The collection unfolds across four chapters which together feel almost cinematic. Did you envision this collection as a narrative journey from the outset, or did the story emerge through the design process?
The starting point of a collection is always the idea, the vision, the dream – never the design process. This year, I first wanted to pay tribute to Frédéric Boucheron as a person. From there, I imagined four masterpieces to express four essential facets that help us understand who he was, and ultimately who we are. Each chapter became a way to explore identity, intuition, and freedom. Together, they form a journey that feels both personal and universal.
“The Address” celebrates Boucheron’s decision to open at 26 Place Vendôme; what fascinates you most about the relationship between jewelry, architecture, and light in this piece? The octagonal geometry, black lacquer contrast, and detachable ring introduce both rigor and surprise. How important is tension — between structure and fluidity, tradition and innovation — in your creative language?
The first necklace, “The Address”, recalls the octagonal Place Vendôme, where Frédéric Boucheron was the very first jeweler to open a store in 1893. I reinterpreted a necklace from the archives, and made it sharper, tautening the lines and playing on the stark contrast of monochrome white gold and diamonds against deep black lacquer. The focal point of the design is a sort of mise en abyme of emerald-cut motifs, with a 10.01-carat diamond at its heart. While the octagonal geometry brings rigor and grounding, the black lacquer and the detachable ring introduce contrast, movement, and surprise. An architectural layering ensures each baguette, round, or emerald-cut diamond is set to its advantage, so it best catches the light. The greatest technical challenge for the artisans was to reveal a fluidity within this uncompromising geometry: the collar section, with its black lacquer border, appears to run seamlessly around the throat in a single piece, despite being made up of multiple articulated elements. The baguette diamonds were also recut and oriented, so they follow the natural curve of the neck collar. And this piece harbors one final secret – the central motif can be detached to form a ring. Tension between structure, fluidity, heritage and innovation is essential to my creative language because it is precisely in that space that jewelry becomes alive, expressive, and contemporary.
“The Spark” revisits the Question Mark necklace, one of the most radical jewelry inventions of the 19th century. What does innovation mean in high jewelry today, when technical excellence is often assumed rather than visible?
The second necklace, “The Spark”, is inspired by an 1884 drawing of our first icon. In 1879, Frédéric Boucheron challenged the conventions of his time – heavy, rigid jewelry. He believed that jewelry should follow the body, not the other way around. That year, he created the Point d’Interrogation necklace, allowing women to adorn themselves without assistance. Just like him, I think innovation should never be pursued for its own sake – it must serve a vision. Whether it is making flowers eternal and placing them on fingers in Nature Triomphante (2018), unhooking a piece of sky and hanging it around the neck in Contemplation (2020), or bringing back black sand from the beaches of Iceland and compacting it into a necklace for Or Bleu (2024), I share this philosophy. I am deeply attached to these pieces because they express a freedom to innovate with confidence. As long as there are limits in High Jewelry, we will continue to push them in order to bring our creative vision to life.
Weight, balance, articulation, and comfort seem as central to your work as aesthetics. How do you balance engineering constraints with emotional impact when designing a major piece?
Striking that balance is not difficult for us, because comfort is an essential part of our savoir-faire. Emotion should never come at the expense of how a piece feels on the body. We do everything we can to create jewelry that is light, supple, and effortless to wear. This approach is perfectly expressed through this 2026 Histoire de Style collection, where my focus was on the extreme precision of the gemstones’ arrangement, and suppleness. For The Address necklace, a central 10-carat diamond is framed by 242 baguette diamonds, each recut and carefully oriented to follow the natural curve of the neck, creating a fluid, architectural line, easy to wear. Besides, with The Silhouette necklace, the diamonds are designed to mold around the body’s contours and move with it. Over seven meters of bezel-set diamonds make up these chains, including more than 2,500 round diamonds. It is proof that we can create versatile, multi-wear pieces that remain comfortable to wear.
Frédéric Boucheron approached jewelry like a couturier, thinking in terms of drape, movement, and the body rather than ornament alone. How does your own studio translate fashion intelligence into permanent objects?
Indeed, one of Frédéric Boucheron’ singularities is that he was the son of a draper. He grew up surrounded by precious silks and laces, and had a keen sense of the textures, fluidity and drape of fabrics. He didn’t view jewelry through the same lens as other jewelers; for him, it was an extension of clothing, another element that made up a person’s style. Therefore, I drew on Frédéric Boucheron’s original design grammar of fluidity, transformability, and original wearing styles to create pieces where white gold and diamonds mold around the body’s contours and follow its movements. Very soon, he believed that the future of High Jewelry would lie, in part, in creating pieces that are not only beautiful objects, but living creations capable of adapting to the different occasions and moments in life, and that movement and transformability will undoubtedly be key elements in the evolution of the industry. He was right, because today’s women are looking for jewelry that evolves with them, that can adapt to their outfits, moods, and surroundings. Just like him, I think High jewelry should no longer be viewed as a static piece, but as a true companion in daily life, one that transforms and adjusts – just like fashion. At Boucheron, we are constantly exploring new ways to make our creations evolve, offering transformable jewelry to meet the diverse desires. This reflects our commitment to creating timeless, yet contemporary pieces that accompany men and women through all moments of their lives. Indeed, I like to craft transformable pieces because this modularity speaks to how people wear jewelry today: with freedom, individuality, and a sense of play – just like this collection, in which we count 15 possibilities of multiwear in total, for the 4 masterpieces. It is in this way that I have made the Maison’s heritage my own, while modernizing it through the way the pieces are worn.
Ivy becomes a powerful symbol in “The Untamed.” Why do you think imperfection and natural realism feel increasingly relevant in contemporary luxury?
The fourth necklace, “The Untamed”, is an ode to the vitality of nature. In an era when the natural world was stylized, tamed, and idealized, Frédéric Boucheron saw and loved the reality of it, with its imperfections. As we share the same vision of nature, I always dreamed of reproducing the design of the very first Question Mark necklace, with its ivy motif, and making its extra-long length a reality. Staying true to the original sketch, while adapting it to today’s wearing styles, I envisioned a branch of ivy set with round diamonds and clambering freely downwards following the contours of the body. The only reason why I cherish imperfection is because it’s part of life – and life is what inspires me. Imperfection carries time, use, emotion, and accident. It reflects reality rather than an idealized image. In a world where luxury has long been associated with control and flawlessness, natural realism feels increasingly meaningful because it reconnects creation to what is human, lived, and alive.
Some of these pieces require well over a thousand hours of work. In a world driven by speed and immediacy, how do you protect the value of slowness, patience, and obsessive craftsmanship?
When I pay tribute to Frédéric Boucheron, I feel it is essential to highlight the most refined and exceptional savoir-faire possible, and it takes time. For a High Jewelry Maison, working over the long term is not a choice but a foundation. Time, patience, and an uncompromising ethic of excellence are at the very core of what defines true craftsmanship. I think protecting slowness means protecting meaning. Obsessive craftsmanship allows each piece to mature, to reach a level of precision and emotion that cannot be rushed. These long hours are not about accumulation of time, but about respect for the materials, for the hands that shape them, and for the heritage we are carrying forward. Slowness is how we honor tradition while ensuring its relevance for the future.
When a piece finally leaves the atelier, do you still feel authorship or does it begin a new life entirely in the hands of the wearer?
In my opinion, a jewel is like a work of art: to be appreciated over a lifetime, it must go beyond its materiality and its creator’s ambition. A piece should tell a story when it is created, but it should also leave room for many other stories to emerge once it is worn. We all have our own sensitivity, and the beauty of a jewel lies in its ability to move us, to transcend us, and to resonate differently with each individual. In that sense, a piece has a thousand lives, shaped by the emotions, memories, and imagination of those who wear it.
As Creative Director, how do you cultivate innovation within a historic house without overwhelming the heritage that defines it?
The balance between heritage and innovation has always been in Boucheron’s DNA. As a High Jewelry Maison, the starting point is always traditional know-how, but innovation serves the creative purpose of the collections – so the balance is natural. I see this innovation and creation process as a duty instituted by Frédéric Boucheron, who was the first jeweler to use rock crystal or to create a necklace without a clasp: to push back the know-how limits of High Jewelry. By continuing to innovate, I am not breaking away from heritage but rather perpetuating the philosophy of Frédéric Boucheron – honoring his vision and exceptional savoir-faire, by allowing it to evolve with time.
Do you believe high jewelry still has the power to influence broader culture, beyond collectors and connoisseurs?
What matters most to me is that when people see and wear the pieces, they feel something. That they are touched in one way or another. This is all I care about – sharing poetry and emotion.
When future generations look back at your tenure at Boucheron, what would you hope they recognize as your defining contribution?
I hope they will recognize my aim to question the notion of preciousness. Indeed, it is a notion that has significantly grown in my collections, notably Carte Blanche. For example, by using Cofalit, a “final material” made by recycling an industrial byproduct, burnt wood, or sand in my creations, I want to demonstrate that certain materials, not considered noble at first sight, are actually just as precious as gold and diamonds. Thanks to Boucheron CEO Hélène Poulit-Duquesne, I cultivate the freedom to create and to always go further in this questioning. Our relation, based on trust and complementarity, enables me to fully express my creativity.
If Frédéric Boucheron could walk into your studio today, what do you imagine would surprise or delight him most?
I can’t speak on his behalf, but I hope he would be proud. Proud to see that the spirit of audacity, creativity, and excellence he instilled in the Maison is still very much alive, and that the savoir-faire he valued so deeply continues to be pushed, respected, and celebrated today.
Is there a personal object, artwork, or place that consistently fuels your imagination outside of jewelry?
My greatest sources of inspiration are travel and nature, which allow me to cultivate an openness to the world, and this is deeply precious to me. Being immersed in different landscapes, cultures, and atmospheres constantly feeds my imagination. Nature, with its raw forms, imperfections, and rhythms, offers an endless vocabulary of textures, colors, and structures. These experiences outside of jewelry help me reconnect with what feels essential, intuitive, and that inevitably finds its way back into my creative work.