PARIS — Charlotte Chesnais is writing the first stroke of a new chapter for her 10-year-old jewelry label with the opening of her largest flagship yet in Tokyo.

Located in the Aoyama district, the stand-alone four-level unit mixing glass and what the Parisian jeweler jokingly described as “Tadao Ando concrete” spans 1,100 square feet — three times larger than any of her Paris boutiques.

But the leap in scale sits fine with Chesnais. “Now that we’ve opened it, we’re saying that we only want big boutiques from now on,” she said.

Having the additional surface, spread across three levels of retail spaces with room for offices underground, as well as sweeping high-ceilinged volumes, was an opportunity to unfurl a new experience of the brand.

“It’s really a boutique where you’re invited to sit down,” she said. “We really wanted a space where people slow down.”

There are comfortable seating areas made for lingering over a hot beverage and some jewels, monumental cast glass tables and interesting elements such as Chesnais XXL objects shaped like her jewels. Visitors might also find the extensive use of silver leaf on the walls rather arresting, given its ability to reflect the ample natural light but also change over time.

“It’s going to oxidize, change color, so the boutique won’t be the same depending on when you visit,” Chesnais said. “When the sun hits it directly, it’s almost blinding. At the end of the day, it turns almost orange, like it’s burning.”

The project had long been on the Parisian’s mind. Not only did she fall in love with Japan early in her career, when she took part in an inspiration trip with Nicolas Ghesquière during his tenure at Balenciaga, but the market loved her own brand right back from the early days.

Over the years, Chesnais said she “could feel [she] had a real fanbase,” but felt the retail experience was incomplete despite long-standing and solid wholesale partnerships.

“It’s the market we’ve worked the most after France,” said Chesnais, who decided early on to focus her then-small team’s efforts on those two territories, with a PR agency and commercial agent in Japan, as well as very regular visits from the designer.

The country accounts today for 15 percent of the business behind France, which leads in Europe’s combined 70 percent, and well ahead of the U.S.’ 10 percent share, which is emerging strongly e-commerce.

While the company does not disclose its overall sales revenue, the team has now grown to 22 at its Paris headquarters plus around 30 retail staff at the five points of sale under direct control, which also include two Paris stores and outposts at Galeries Lafayette and Le Bon Marché.

“At some point it was frustrating. We felt Japan was the country that would be most sensitive to the full proposition — architecture, special packaging, everything — so it made sense to open a flagship there, and to do it directly, without a partner.”

But Aoyama didn’t come easy. “We’d been looking for a year, and nothing felt right — too big, too expensive, or just not us,” she recalled. A last-minute call, days before Christmas 2024, had her husband, who serves as chief executive officer of the brand, rushing to Japan. The lease was signed 24 hours later.

After a year’s renovation, the address designed in collaboration with Dutch architect Anne Holtrop is Chesnais’ Tokyo flagship, but will also be “a bit of a headquarter for Asia,” the jeweler said. “We hope the store will allow us to shine more in the region.”

This expansion comes on top of an already dense year for the house, which included its milestone anniversary and the formal launch of an 18-karat gold fine jewelry line in July, the culmination of two to three years of build-up.

Until then the jeweler dabbled, a bespoke request here, a clutch of pieces dropped in-store there, but there was “no collection, no [firm] plan, no wholesale,” she said. “You really had to be curious and a fan of the brand to know those pieces existed.”

Building up this 18-karat gold offering, which starts at just under 1,000 euros for one of her gem-set curvaceous letters from the “Alphajoaillerie” initials line and goes north of 7,500 euros for the full pavé version of her winding Round Trip ring, was equal parts opportunity and challenge.

Take the sinuous volumes the brand is known for. Keeping true to them required adjusting the way stones are set.

“A diamond has a table, it’s flat [so] at first, it flattened my designs and I didn’t recognize them,” Chesnais explained. “We ended up with a technique where we set tiny stones on several staggered rows in different sizes. You don’t really see it with the naked eye, but it keeps the wire looking round, even though it’s fully pavé.”

Meanwhile, the surge in gold prices required Chesnais to carefully plot out stock, price revisions but also how to fine tune the balance of her silver and vermeil lines, with the new fine jewelry.

While the former will continue the bold signature that won her the inaugural ANDAM Prize for accessories back in 2015, the 18-karat line will lean delicately sculptural, play with more important stones and even pearls.

Throughout, Chesnais “will try to take the best practices of the biggest houses while keeping the agility, independence and style” she’s developed. “It’s not going to happen overnight.”

For now, with the inauguration of the Tokyo store Friday, she’d “love to just roll with it for a bit,” she said.

“But I know myself, by the end of 2026, I’ll be bored and set a new project out for the team,” she added with a laugh.