Fall 2005 Style & Design
São Paulo (pop. 18 million), roars with sophisticated hotels and
boutiques. Clube Chocolate in the Jardins district has live palm trees
and a sand beach. The new Daslu, Brazil's most exclusive designer
emporium, is the grandest of them all. Modeled on a neoclassical temple
and measuring some 200,000 sq. ft., it has three restaurants and a
rooftop helipad. Brazil is said to have the world's second largest fleet
of private helicopters, and choppers keep coming up. At Carlota, a power
bistro in town, diners tease tastemaker Costanza Pascolato. In a recent
interview, she scolded nouveau riche helicopter owners for arriving late
at country weddings and blowing away bride and guests. "It's
outrageous," Pascolato says, rolling her eyes and leaning across the
table toward Gloria Kalil, the Lebanese-Brazilian author of a new
etiquette book, Chiquerrimo. "Gloria, you should do a chapter on
helicopters."
With all the buzz, Brazil would seem to be an obvious selling point for
H. Stern, but it's complicated. "We think of ourselves as a Brazilian
company, but we don't think it's necessary or even useful to scream
that. Nokia is not 'Finnish,'" Roberto Stern argues. "In luxury, to be
French or Italian, this is useful. But what does it say to be
Brazilian?" It's a constant tightrope: bikinis and overt carnival
references are frowned upon, but Havaianas flip-flops trimmed in gold
feathers were a hit with the media. Artists' collaborations have been
successful, like the 2001 pieces based on the work of Brazilian
furniture designers the Campana brothers, famous for their favela chair.
Despite Stern's attempts to modernize the company's image—in 1998 the
company ditched its Gothic-lettered logo for a sleeker one in which the
S is slightly submerged—the brand struggles with a split personality.
The name means one thing to consumers who encounter H. Stern in
magazines or stores and another to Brazilians and the tourists who visit
H. Stern in Rio. There they have a unique experience: a dispatcher in H.
Stern's offices takes calls from 40 Rio hotels and sends free limousines
to bring anywhere from 300 to 1,000 guests a day to H. Stern's modern
glass headquarters in the fashionable Ipanema district. The tourists
disappear downstairs for the guided tour, a mainstay of H. Stern's
marketing strategy since 1952.
Wearing audio headsets with a choice of 17 languages, they are given
some background on Brazilian gems and watch experts cut, polish and set
stones. They learn that the value of a colored gemstone depends on
subjective factors, including color, rarity and clarity, and that even
the best-trained eye is incapable of accurately remembering color. They
are shown how specialists spot a fake.
Visitors are ushered into a special sales room with small tables on
which trays of $300 rings are gradually traded up for more expensive
pieces, depending on the visitor's wallet and interest. After coffee
come the five-figure pieces, like an $89,000 emerald choker with
diamonds. "There is nowhere else in the world where you will find such a
selection of rare colored stones," says Roberto Stern, escorting a
visitor into the walk-in vault.
About 25% of visitors make a jewelry purchase during the guided tour.
The rest leave with a photo and an ice cream (a hostess in a glass vault
scoops on the way out), the Stern philosophy being that everyone should
have fun.
The guided tour is just one of many zany marketing ploys. Over the
years, Hans Stern dispatched representatives to meet holiday cruise
ships at the dock. The company handed out charms in key South American
ports of call and advised vacationers to stop by its store in Rio to
pick up free bracelets. As air travel replaced cruise ships, H. Stern
adapted by posting girls in shorts near the baggage carousels to
distribute city maps splashed with the Rio stores' addresses and H.
Stern advertising. Meanwhile, Hans Stern successfully lobbied the
powerful Gemological Institute of America to ban the term semiprecious
in reference to gemstones.
In today's more scripted marketing environment, the company depends on
magazine advertising and celebrity endorsements. Catherine Zeta-Jones
wore an H. Stern $160,000 vintage aquamarine necklace to the 2001
Academy Awards, and Angelina Jolie flashed $10 million of flawless
diamonds at the 2004 Oscars. Still, Roberto Stern cultivates a kooky
side. He once installed a dentist's chair in the Ipanema store window
and had clients drop by to have stones glued onto their teeth. He
encourages individual touches in different locales. The downtown Rio
store has one of the area's most popular lunch spots and a coconut-juice
bar in the rear for beach-starved moguls. A spa concept is planned for
another store.
Standing out has never been so important for H. Stern. High-end jewelry
is one of the luxury world's hottest sectors, with all sorts of well-
financed new competitors piling in. Chanel and Dior now make bijoux,
diamond producer De Beers has launched its own brand with the LVMH
luxury conglomerate, and other groups continue to expand their jewelry
holdings. Hans Stern says the company has lost money for three years, as
it tried to keep up with the pack and store investments outpaced sales
growth. The Sterns say they are convinced that the combination of
creative modern products and in-house technical savoir faire will permit
H. Stern to flourish as an independent company. Plus, there's that
inside track with the locals.
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