What is more precious than our humanity? Than the totality of our condition, in both its magnitude and its intricacies? We distill into particles of individual experience, yet remain unified by our capacity to feel. To Boucheron Creative Director Claire Choisne, the beauty of our condition lies in both its variousness and its universality. For their newest collection, Boucheron is commemorating the Human Being with an exhibition at Christie's New York and by unveiling a series of pieces that embody the fragility, diversity, and ubiquity of the human experience. 

The collection constitutes five jewelry sets, each endowed with the life force of nature. With this collection, Boucheron emphasizes primality through pieces that emulate nature’s most sacred components. The Rain set is composed of rock crystals that have been hand-carved into water droplets, mimicking the intimacy of rain pouring on human skin. The Flower set embodies the intricacy of the anthropocene, consisting of pieces that quite literally look like they are in bloom. Each gemstone in the Light set reflects the interplay between reflection and material, emitting little epiphanies with every shift. The Tattoo and Checker collections are almost folkloric, possessing a certain depth that exceeds tactile function. The whole collection is as emotive as it is adorning, becoming almost anthropomorphic by nature.

Alongside the release of the Human Being collection, Boucheron presents “Boucheron: In Focus – A Monograph of a Visionary”, an exhibition showcasing pieces from the company’s archives as well as pieces from the Human Being collection. “A monograph […] is devoted to a single subject and explores it in depth,”  says Boucheron CEO Hélène Poulit-Duquesne. “Rather than following dates, it lets us curate around meaning, around the ideas and the spirit that define who we are.” The exhibition displays the breadth of Boucheron’s lineage while looking towards the future, invoking the ethos of the company’s founder Frédéric Boucheron: “[He] was, above all, a pioneer. While his peers perpetuated tradition, he challenged it; while others followed the established order, he reinvented the rules. Nearly 170 years later, his most precious legacy lies in this visionary spirit.”

"Boucheron: In Focus" will run from October 9th to October 18th at Christie’s New York. We spoke with Poulit-Duquesne about the exhibition, as well as about lineage, innovation, and true artisan craftsmanship. 

“Boucheron: In Focus – A Monograph of a Visionary” is described as an “immersive journey” rather than a chronological retrospective. What inspired the creative direction behind this curatorial approach, and what do you hope visitors will take away from experiencing Boucheron’s nearly two-century-old heritage and identity?’

We very deliberately chose to conceive this exhibition as a monograph rather than a retrospective. A retrospective simply records what happened - but that is not what interested us. Our archives are not frozen in the past; they are a living source of inspiration. A monograph, on the other hand, is devoted to a single subject and explores it in depth: rather than following dates, it lets us curate around meaning, around the ideas and the spirit that define who we are. That is the whole idea behind this immersive journey: to let visitors see how a piece from 1858 and a piece created today sit in the very same conversation. What I hope they take away is a real understanding of who Boucheron is - not a museum of the past, but a Maison whose pioneering spirit has been consistent for 168 years. If visitors leave feeling that Frédéric Boucheron’s audacity is still alive in what we create today, then we will have told our story exactly as we wished.

The first part of the exhibition is organized around four creative chapters: Couture, Nature, Architecture, and Innovation. How do these pillars collectively inform the creative process, and where do you see their influence most clearly in the work being produced today?

These four chapters are the enduring facets of the Maison’s identity, and together they still guide everything we create. Couture is in our DNA since 1858: Frédéric Boucheron was the son of a draper, and he always saw jewelry as an extension of clothing, another element of a person’s style. That instinct lives on in our transformable, multiwear pieces: you see it very clearly in Claire Choisne’s creations, like our hoodie cords or our High Jewelry pocket from the Carte Blanche More is More collection, where the jewel becomes almost a garment. Nature has always been one of our main inspirations, and Frédéric celebrated it in its most authentic state - humble and untamed. We continued that quest very recently with our two 2025 High Jewelry collections “Untamed Nature” and “Impermanence”. Architecture speaks to our story as the first great jeweler to open on Place Vendôme, in 1893 - a sense of structure and geometry that still runs through our creations. You find it, for instance, in our love of the emerald cut, which echoes the octagonal shape of Place Vendôme as seen from the sky – it has since become a real emblem of the Maison’s communication, as it became our logo, but also in the shape of our pieces. And Innovation has been at the heart of everything since the beginning: it is never innovation for the sake of innovation, but always a tool to bring a creative dream to life. We keep exploring new techniques, new materials, and inventing new ways of wearing our pieces, especially in all our Carte Blanche collections.

Boucheron and Christie’s both share a deep commitment to craftsmanship, heritage, and storytelling. What common values or sensibilities made this partnership feel like a natural fit, and how did those shared principles shape the exhibition?

Partnering with Christie’s felt completely natural. Boucheron has a long history with auction houses in general - our pieces have always met with great success there, particularly among American collectors. So there is a genuine, shared culture around craftsmanship, heritage, and the stories our creations carry. Christie’s brings a weight of cultural authority, expertise, and trust that a gallery or a boutique simply could not give, along with a global audience of collectors. Those shared principles shaped the exhibition directly: because both houses believe that a jewel is never only an object but the bearer of a story, we felt free to curate around meaning and emotion rather than dates - and to give our heritage the cultural credibility it deserves in a market like the United States, where we are still introducing who we truly are.

The second part of the exhibition is devoted to the 2026 High Jewelry Carte Blanche collection. Described as pushing “the limits of High Jewelry and questioning the meaning of preciousness,” how does this collection embody the spirit of Frédéric Boucheron while showcasing contemporary creativity and experimentation?

For me, “Human Being” embodies Frédéric Boucheron’s spirit perfectly, for two Reasons. The first is that he was profoundly people-centric. He created jewelry to be worn - think of the Question Mark necklace, conceived so a woman could put it on herself, freely, without help. He placed the individual at the heart of everything, always caring for his clients’ freedom and their style. The second is that he understood that the most precious thing of all was the hands of his artisans. He had immense respect for his craftsmen - he was the first jeweler to name them on his stands at the World’s Fairs. 

This is exactly what Claire expresses this year. This philosophy is even truer in an ever more artificial world - this is why Claire wanted to dedicate this Carte Blanche to the human being - with that idea: we are all the same, yet all unique. She is convinced that nothing will ever supplant human creativity and artisanal craftsmanship - so the collection becomes a celebration of the human hand itself. She took one archetypal shape, the cluster necklace, to express what connects us all, then called upon a diversity of savoir-faire, colors, and materials to reveal what makes each of us unique. Artisans from very different worlds came together for more than 14,000 hours of work. That is exactly the pioneering, boundary-pushing energy of Frédéric Boucheron, expressed in a resolutely contemporary way - being rather than seeming.

‍Nearly 170 years later, what do you think remains most relevant about Frédéric Boucheron’s vision, and how do you see it continuing to shape the future of the Maison?

Frédéric Boucheron was, above all, a pioneer. While his peers perpetuated tradition, he challenged it; while others followed the established order, he reinvented the rules. Nearly 170 years later, his most precious legacy lies in this visionary spirit - and for me, it is what remains most relevant. Innovation has been in our DNA since 1858, and if we truly want to respect the past, we have the duty to keep pushing boundaries, just as he did. As CEO, my duty is to ensure Boucheron continues to light the way in a very traditional industry.