Avani, a family jewellery company, was founded on a simple concept: to offer exceptional sapphires at fair prices, far from the traditional codes of luxury jewellery.
By ethically and ecologically selecting raw stones of exceptional quality, directly from the land of origin of Ceylon sapphires – in Sri Lanka – Avani’s objective is to offer its customers a tailor-made jewel.
Thanks to the family mines and artisanal savoir-faire, Avani can boast of magnifying stones like no other house, offering to reveal shades of sapphire that one would not have suspected.
If we had already proposed you to discover the new case of Haute Gemmologie unveiled at the beginning of the year at the Marché Saint-Honoré, Icon-Icon now brings you an exclusive interview of its creator to discover all the secrets of the most beautiful gems in the capital!
Could you go back to the genesis of Maison Avani?
My brother and I founded Avaniabout two years ago. We realised that the jewellery market was now made up of two types of houses: those that only make diamonds and those that make all kinds of stones: rubies, sapphires, etc.
Sapphires are the most popular stone after diamonds, which come in all colours. Sapphire being the most sold stone after diamond, which exists in all colours, we wanted to make quite minimalist jewellery, in our image. We didn’t necessarily want to stand out in terms of design, but rather in the choice of stones, colours and shapes.
We realised that we had a boulevard in front of us because there was a certain demand, especially for pieces in the 1000 to 2000€ range, and even for larger budgets.
After a year, we decided to open a second shop. The first one will be more for made-to-measure pieces and for a certain clientele with a larger budget.
This second boutique is now open at the Marché Saint-Honoré, since February 2022.
What relationship do you have with stones, where that link come from ?
found myself in it by force of circumstance. My family was in this background : my grand-father ran a sapphire mine, his work was selling stones to foreign buyers that came to Sri Lanta to supply. My uncle is now owning the business and is trying to expand it internationally. Finally, my brother wanted to study in this field and I helped him with the administrative part because he travelled a lot to choose the stones. As someone who used to work in digital marketing, I asked him questions to see how he could develop his business. We then thought that we could launch this project ourselves, unconsciously.
We then thought that we could launch this project ourselves, unconsciously. We don’t think too much, I just take things as they come and it works for us.
How the market types are organized ?
Today, diamond is the biggest part of the market with brands like Tiffany & Co or Cartier.
There are also diamond merchants who, using their savoir-faire, make custom-made pieces, particularly in Paris, and are often less expensive than the big houses, but of similar quality.
The other type sells everything, they do not specialise in one particular sector, which gives them a wide choice. However, if you are looking for something very specific, a rare colour of sapphire or emerald for example, this is not where you will find it. Nor in the diamond shops. That’s where I saw that there was a place for it.
In order to sum up, your purpose is to make yourself as the sapphire specialist ?
We sell exceptional coloured stones such as the Padparadscha sapphire – the rarest sapphire in the world – or all the sapphires in the gemstone family with a wide range of colours: blue, pink, yellow, green, etc.
We have stones that in a few years’ time will be as well known as the ruby or the emerald – stones of the future. One example is tsavorite, a green stone that has the advantage of shining like a sapphire and having the intense green of an emerald. It thus concentrates the best of both stones. Tsavorite is only found in Tanzania and is much rarer than emerald.
Another stone we work with is red spinel – the replacement for ruby because a very high quality ruby is more expensive than a diamond, French customers don’t want to pay as much or more for a beautiful ruby and we always want to offer the best for our customers. We have created a ring with this stone, which was exhibited at Sotheby’s.
As an exemple, Bulgari they’ve brought out a 140-carat red spinel, they’re not selling it because they know that these are exceptional stones and that they need to start positioning themselves in the market.
It’s a kind of bet we’re making for the long term.
Our new objective is to create an experience through our boutiques: to place ourselves between classic jewellery and high jewellery and to tell people that they can have an experience worthy of the great Houses without necessarily having its intimidating codes and thus have a fairly direct contact.
We will offer an experience with an open-air workshop and a designer who will make you a gouache from the chosen stone.
Here we have nothing to hide. On the contrary, we have everything to share.
Are there some celebrities that begin to wear some of your pieces ?
Last year, we did a collaboration with Iris Mittenaere. We chose her because I thought she reflected the image of the brand and our history: five years ago we didn’t know her and now she has become influential.
It’s a goal for us to continue to do this kind of project and we’ll do it again next year.
At Icon-Icon we are very interested in brand icons, do you have a signature piece, an iconic pattern?
No. From the moment we make iconic pieces, it is to make the brand recognisable and this is not our priority.
Our priority is to always respond to our customers’ requests by finding them the best exceptional stones and making them jewellery as they imagine it. And this is not necessarily easy with a demanding clientele.
If we have to bring out a signature from our House, we will surely put it in a specific cup.
We are alone in this field and we don’t know yet if our ways are the right ones. Since we position ourselves differently from the other houses – we talk a lot about stones – maybe we are not responding enough to the demand.
Our only indicator is the feedback from our customers. Our only indicator is the feedback from our customers. . Even if the road is long and perilous, we are on the right track and that’s what counts .
Interview by Sébastien Girard, President of Icon-Icon
Leave a Reply