Luxury launch

Why Bulgari is coming to town

High-end jewellery retailer Bulgari is days away from making its New Zealand debut.

The Italian fashion house will on Friday open the doors to its lavish 260sq m boutique on Auckland’s Queen St — its first retail store in the country.

Managing director JeanChristophe Babin said New Zealand had been on the brand’s radar for many years, and the jewellery, watch and accessories retailer began exploring opportunities to launch in the market a few years ago.

Babin told the Herald Bulgari would continue to look for “the right opportunities” to expand locally.

He remained tight-lipped on where else it might look to open boutiques.

“New Zealand is increasingly a precious treasure chest for the world of luxury as one of the countries with the best results for the main international retailers and an important positive perspective,” Rome-based Babin told the Herald.

Bulgari’s Queen St boutique will be modelled on the same “contemporary Roman” aesthetics and architecture featured in its stores across the world, and will employ 11 staff.

It will sell the same product assortment and collections of jewellery, watches, fragrance and apparel found in all of its locations.

Babin said he was confident the brand would be wellreceived in the market.

Lelio Gavazza, vice president of sales and retail at Bulgari, looked at several central Auckland locations for the boutique, before settling on a upper Queen St location nestled among the other highend designer brands.

Gavazza said the investment into the store was significant, with most of the materials used in the interior fitout imported from Italy.

The brand expects to launch its local online store to service the e-commerce market next year. It will launch cross-border e-commerce, fulfilling local orders from its central warehouse in Europe in the first quarter of 2021, before it rolls out a local domain.