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LVMH’s new star Gaia Repossi tells Jo Ellison why in jewels, as in business, it’s all about balance

Gaia Repossi, 29, is in the lounge of the Chiltern Firehouse, London, describing her decision to sell a minority share of Repossi, the fine jewellery business founded by her great-grandfather in 1920, to the luxury conglomerate LVMH. Speaking in a whisper, just audible over the plinky piano jazz of the hotel’s sound system and no match for the waitress who has grudgingly accepted her order for green tea and the hotel’s enigmatic snack of “carrot blunts”, she cuts a diminutive figure. Dressed in a wardrobe that rotates Cos, Céline, Louis Vuitton and Loewe, with razor-sharp cheekbones and a particularly European type of raw, hollow-eyed beauty, she’s an arresting if subtle presence. It’s a compelling package: she’s built a career on the quiet statement that reverberates loudly.

Born in Turin in 1986, and raised in Monaco, Italy and France, Repossi was only 21 when her father made her creative director of the family business. An archaeology graduate, she studied painting at the Beaux-Arts in Paris and was settled on a career as an artist. Her father lured her, she says, by offering her creative control. “It was the way to bring me in,” she says, “but he was always right next to me, and we are working hand in hand.”

Nine years later, Repossi has transformed the house once famed for its delicate yet rather old-fashioned couture pieces. From the outset, she determined to offer something radically different to the vast, glitzy jewellery houses that dwarf the small Repossi store on the Place Vendôme in Paris. Her jewels are modern, deceptively simple and design-led, all inspired by architecture, art, and “anthropological details”.

“Normally you find a stone and try to work around it,” she explains. “But it’s the shape that comes first for me. It’s quite a systematic approach: not unlike an architect. I see the body as a structure to build around.”

Her design is often described as minimal but it’s an ill-fitting word for pieces like her dramatic Serti Sur Vide 18-carat white gold cuff encrusted with diamonds (£38,430), or her use of vivid colour, like the bright pink rhodium-dipped gold that features in her “fuchsia” designs. “I think it’s more about balance than minimalism,” she says. “It’s about the woman’s body, and her hand and the proportions. Whether something makes sense.”

Repossi’s jewels have a specific identity and a fast growing clientele. An early hit, an earring from her Berbere collection that cuffed the upper ear like a tribal piercing and spawned a thousand imitations. Subsequent collections have included Antifer, which features jagged stacked rings that can be worn all over the fingers, and White Noise — cuffs and chokers that wiggle around the body like manic radio waves. The jewels of choice for actresses demonstrating their more outré fashion credentials on the red carpet, Repossi has built a cult following around the brand; a following that has been further helped by the designer’s emergence as a street style star and fashion plate.

There are currently two Repossi flagship stores and the brand has outlets in key sales points such as Harrods and Dover Street Market as well as a strong online presence. But the house is still a minnow in the world of fine jewellery. Repossi doesn’t disclose figures, but according to Luca Solca, managing director and sector head of global luxury goods at Exane BNP Paribas, they turn over a “maximum of €50m per year, and more realistically no more than €20m”. It’s a situation that is poised to change. “I wasn’t really looking for investment,” says Repossi of the deal with LVMH, which was announced on November 30. “But the company had been facing demand that was outstripping our ability to produce. We realised that, with an injection of power that didn’t strip out the family DNA, we would be able to respond to that.

“I had some concerns,” she continues. “Major changes or shifts can cause unease. Growth is realistic, but it has to be organic. Of course, the deal will allow us greater creative opportunity, but we will always combine the new technologies with the craft and couture feeling of the house. And there’s no expectation LVMH will touch anything.”

The deal was initiated by Delphine Arnault, the 40-year-old director of LVMH and executive vice-president of Louis Vuitton, Bernard Arnault’s daughter and Repossi’s friend of five years. “I have followed Gaia’s career since she was 19,” writes Arnault in an email. “At the time she was collaborating with young designers and her approach was very avant garde. When the opportunity came to invest the decision was taken quite naturally. We share the same values; Repossi is a family business and its DNA is embedded with creativity and the excellence of its products. We have a beautiful portfolio of strategic jewellery brands (Bulgari, Dior Joaillerie, Chaumet, Fred and Louis Vuitton Joaillerie), and each has its own identity and independence. It will be the same with Repossi.”

Arnault and Repossi are professionally — and physically — simpatico. Both have the same slight, delicate physique (although the more statuesque Arnault towers over Repossi), blonde shoulder-length hair and hushed voices. They had peripatetic international childhoods and share a professional destiny: both started working alongside their fathers shortly after graduation. They also have a mutual interest in contemporary art and architecture; Repossi has been in a relationship with the LA-based artist Jeremy Everett for several years. In many ways, the signing has a touch of sororal affection about it.

“It was a work relationship,” says Repossi of their friendship. “I admired Delphine’s ability and concern in finding who was next with the designers. Finding the right people for the right brands. Offering what was next and reinventing it. I had always appreciated it. And she liked what I was doing.”

Friendship aside, the deal follows a distinctive pattern. “The minority buy is an established LVMH trademark,” says Solca. “They want to engage the founders of the business in the future of the company, and retain their participation. It builds a pool of talent within the company, but it also works better from a management point of view. Rather than try to direct a number of brands from within a holding company, they hold on to the de facto entrepreneurs who then work harder to expand their companies.”

Fine jewellery is also an area of key interest. In a report published by Solca in July 2013 branded jewellery was said to account for only €30bn of a market worth €148bn, with four brands (including Cartier and Tiffany) dominating two-thirds of those sales. With the addition of Repossi, LVMH are consolidating a key growth area: branded jewels are predicted to represent 30-40 per cent of the fine jewellery market by 2020.

In the meantime, Repossi is redesigning the Place Vendôme store alongside the architect Rem Koolhaas. “I’ve admired him for a long time,” she says. “He questions so much about his own industry, I thought he might be interested in rethinking the jewellery environment. It’s been fascinating.” She won’t divulge more, but don’t expect plush red fixtures and jewel-box intimacy when the store reopens early next year. “I want to rethink what a luxury concept is,” she explains of their collaboration. “I want to create a space neutral enough for what we have, but loud enough to make sense.” She’s also shooting, at great speed, a campaign with the photographer David Sims that will showcase a new spring collection. “It’s very design led, with surprising, unexpected shapes,” she says cryptically of its contents. “It’s going to be something very new. We’re positioning pieces on the body where we haven’t worked yet.” The quiet disrupter, Repossi makes a big impression without displaying any of the bold, alpha-woman traits one might expect. She’s polite, kind and, despite her rarefied existence, extremely unspoilt. She has a girlish charm but her singular focus and fully evolved aesthetic make it easy to forget she’s yet to turn 30. Is she terribly ambitious?

“I’m ambitious for what I carry,” she says. “The house I have behind me. It’s an ambition which isn’t personal, but for the house and the product.” Another shared trait with Delphine: she’s a very dutiful daughter.