Bringing the bling: Jewellers are in a battle for Toronto’s diamond dollars | Canada Voices

The biggest clue that the appetite for high jewellery – the rarest, priciest and most challenging to craft – is growing in Toronto is the glittering facade of the freshly renovated Tiffany & Co. that reopened in Yorkdale Shopping Centre in November. Designed by the acclaimed Tokyo-based architecture firm SANAA, the diamond-inspired exterior is composed of 32,000 glass bricks resembling a vast sheet of supersized ice cubes set at different angles, creating an awe-inspiring shimmer. Toronto’s SDC Contracting, which did the installation, posted on their Instagram account that the 200-foot-long wall weighs more than 200,000 pounds and had to be suspended from the roof, requiring 42 I-beams to brace. The only other such facade is at the Tiffany & Co. that opened in the Dubai Mall last year.

Inside the 8,000-square-foot Yorkdale store, art by Damien Hirst, Vik Muniz and Sho Shibuya decorate spaces devoted to Tiffany’s Lock, HardWear and watch collections. A gallery of master works by legendary designer Jean Schlumberger, who worked for Tiffany from 1956 to the late 1970s, includes a $445,000 gold and diamond Stitches bracelet housed in a pyramid-shaped vitrine. Clients seeking privacy can be taken to one of two very well-hidden lounges, one of which is decorated with a $1-million Tiffany floor lamp. The jeweller has also begun construction on a new store in the heart of Toronto’s “Mink Mile” on the corner of Bay and Bloor streets, which will be about 6,000 square feet larger than their current location two blocks west.

If all this sounds like retail attention-seeking at its finest, it is. The competition for diamond dollars in Toronto has heated up in recent years, with lavish new Bloor Street boutiques opened by Van Cleef & Arpels and Bulgari, the latter of which boasts one of North America’s “most robust” assortments of the Diva’s Dream peacock watches. Cartier revamped their Bloor Street flagship in 2021, installing a facade of Taj Mahal marble and a VIP room lined in hand-painted wallpaper by de Gournay. The brand’s diamond and onyx Panthère necklace with piercing emerald eyes is easily shared between Cartier’s Bloor St. and Yorkdale locations, as needed. It’s such exclusive pieces – the type usually only seen on the Oscar red carpet, or at a Cannes Film Festival premiere – that are new in this market.

Before 2020, Canada wasn’t taken seriously in this category. In 2019, Bulgari tested demand by bringing a small high-jewellery collection to Yorkdale for a week, and inviting guests to Michelin-star catered sushi lunches. COVID shutdowns slowed activity but in May, 2022, the Rome-based jeweller signed on as a major sponsor of the Toronto International Film Festival, stating in a press release that the move “represents a significant investment in the Canadian market.”

Among the first to recognize local interest in bigger bling is veteran Toronto jeweller Myles Mindham, who has been in the business for 42 years. He began augmenting his own designs by bringing in Elton John’s go-to watch brand Franck Muller in 2006, and Coco Chanel’s favourite jeweller, Verdura, in 2010. As a small independent operation, Mindham can’t compete with the massive marketing budgets of big international names. But he has other things he can offer – flexibility on pricing, a townhouse location on Hazelton Avenue with parking and redesign services.

One client asked that a US$156,000 Franck Muller Four Seasons watch covered in multicoloured gems be turned into a necklace. “We also have a portfolio service for families that have vast jewellery collections they need inventoried, evaluated and monitored,” he says, mentioning a client with “about 10 superincredible, really rare Chanel high-jewellery pieces.” Unlike the Ferraris, Bentleys and other signs of wealth that can be spotted on city streets, jewellery is somewhat of a hidden luxury. “They won’t wear it to a restaurant or the Four Seasons,” Mindham says. “But at the dinner parties, that’s where you’ll see it.”

Mindham shares that his business is still riding a wave of pent-up, post-COVID demand but he is also acutely aware of the competition. “I have a client who bought a million-dollar ring on a Tiffany’s trip to Japan,” he says. “These clients are being wined and dined at a level like no other.”

A Toronto high-jewellery enthusiast who also buys haute couture in Paris (the clients The Globe and Mail spoke to for this story are not being named for safety reasons), feels the large jewellery houses are following the same model that couture houses use to woo their top customers. She describes how the fashion houses cover her flights and hotels for couture week, and once she is on the ground, keep her attention with runway shows and exclusive experiences. She has yet to take Bulgari up on their all-expense-paid invites to Rome and the Venice Film Festival.

Some people may feel undue pressure to buy after all the wining, dining and first-class flying. But others might simply be taking advantage of unparalleled access to one-of-a-kind treasures. Several clients The Globe spoke to said they were frustrated by the calibre of what is available locally from international brands. Especially after they fall in love with a magnificent bauble they’ve seen on vacation in Rome or Paris where many fine-jewellery brands are headquartered, and the options are plentiful.

Having a relationship with a salesperson who can alert a client when a travelling collection is coming to town, or who will go the extra mile to secure a piece from overseas, is also critical. This is a group that can hop on a plane (often their own) and shop anywhere but prefer to buy their jewellery in Canada. That way, if they are travelling with a piece, they have the paperwork to show customs officers that taxes and duty were paid. Another Toronto V.I.C. (Very Important Client, as they are known) said that even when she goes on brand trips, it’s with the understanding that any purchase must be made in Canada.

This is also a shopper who is not responsible for the downturn in luxury spending. “The aspirational client is not buying right now, but the high client is,” Mindham says. Much of that likely has to do with jewellery being perceived as an investment, which it can be if the gemstones are significant and the design is exceptionally difficult to produce.

Less than 10 Schlumberger Stitches bracelets are produced a year, a Tiffany craftsperson noted at the Yorkdale opening party, because of the elite level of skill involved in shaping gold to look as if it has been hand-sewn around diamonds. The haute-couture client says that her Schlumberger purchases have all held their value and that she has been told by Tiffany that the house will buy them back at fair market value if she ever wants to sell them.

Mindham has watched values for Verdura rise steadily since he began representing the brand in Canada. “Ten years ago, I sold the black enamel Chevalier cuff with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds and pearls for US$78,000. They now are US$149,000. But there’s maybe only 30 or 40 in existence.” How much of an untapped market Canada is for such rarities remains to be seen. But only by those who do the selling, or get invited to the right dinner parties.