Chow Tai Fook Enters a New Era with the Rouge Collection

As part of its 95th anniversary celebrations, Chow Tai Fook Jewellery’s Creative Director, High Jewellery, Nicholas Lieou has created a collection to engage the new generation. 

This year, Chow Tai Fook Jewellery celebrates 95 years as a leading Chinese jeweller. Since 1929, the brand has led the charge in the jewellery industry, from pioneering 999.9 gold jewellery in Hong Kong and Macau of China, to introducing a fixed-price policy to improve the customer experience by putting an end to the unseemly practice of haggling. Today, it is also the largest diamond importer in China. With one eye on tradition and the other on innovation, Chow Tai Fook has become an integral part of Hong Kong society, weaving its creations into the history and legacy of many local families.

Ninety-five years on, Chow Tai Fook is also setting its sights on solidifying its position as a leading global jewellery brand, committed to promoting and interpreting Chinese traditions for modern international customers. 

Tasked with that responsibility is Nicholas Lieou. Already the Creative Director, High Jewellery at Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group, Lieou is now also responsible for elevating the brand’s image and coming up with new signature collections that encapsulate its vision for the future.

Although that may sound like a tall order, Lieou is up to the challenge. Before joining Chow Tai Fook to design high jewellery for its exclusive clients, Lieou worked with prestigious luxury houses, as well as helming high jewellery and custom design at Tiffany & Co in New York in 2015. He also created his own Mr Lieou jewellery collection, which he debuted at Gem Genève in 2019, and designed for Sotheby’s Diamonds in 2020. 

At the heart of Chow Tai Fook Jewellery’s rebranding directive was a requirement to embrace the jeweller’s Chinese values, while also making jewellery that appeals to the new generation. But as Lieou quickly realised, Chow Tai Fook needed a distinct, recognisable motif, so he immediately set out to create one. 

It was immediately clear to Lieou and his team that it was important to celebrate the Chinese concept of 福, pronounced as fook, which translates as blessings and fortune. As a means of invoking luck, class and prosperity, the word was included in the brand’s name by founder Chow Chi-Yuen when he opened his first store in 1929. The word is ingrained in Chinese culture as a festive greeting, a blessing given at celebratory events, such as welcoming the New Year, or a new child or bride to the family. But how to turn that traditional character into something modern and everyday wearable? Lieou turned to the architectural beauty of Chinese window sills – “a symbol of protection and love between generations, representing the blessings passed from one generation to another”. 

The search for a new motif also transported Lieou back to his own past. His earliest memories of Chow Tai Fook Jewellery include watching his mother buy wedding gifts at the shop. “She bought nuggets of gold that looked like mini versions of the traditional bullion, as well as gold peanuts,” Lieou recalls. “She chose the items not only for their beauty but also for their symbolic meanings, which represented wealth and prosperity for the next generation.”

Chow Tai Fook created the 999.9 gold standard, so why not celebrate that too? “We created the motif in gold bricks to symbolise the connection between Chow Tai Fook Jewellery and pure gold,” says Lieou. His first design for the collection would turn out to be a pair of symbol stud earrings with the fortune motif, rendered in mini gold bricks like the ones his mother bought at Chow Tai Fook many years ago.

To bring the whole collection together, the team decided to honour Dr Cheng Yu Tung, the visionary leader who took over the brand and rebuilt it in the years after 1945. “We named the collection Rouge, to honour Dr Cheng, a driving force in establishing the brand’s legacy,” says Lieou. “His name also signifies the colour red in Chinese, which, aside from being the house’s colour, also represents strength, confidence and fortune.”

The red, now a darker and richer hue, was especially engineered to go well with the pure gold used in the Rouge collection, and along with the “clean graphic” of the motif, allowed for a “less traditional use of gold and red” in the new pieces. 

Working for multiple houses has taught Lieou that design is all about problem solving. “Every house has its own unique set of challenges and needs, and as a designer, my task is to address these issues in a creative and aesthetically pleasing manner. No two houses face the same set of challenges,” he says.

All his designs must be wearable, however. “The concept of wearable jewellery remains a cornerstone of my design philosophy,” he says. “Each design decision is purposeful, with clear reasons and intentions behind every detail. This approach ensures that the jewellery isn’t only beautiful but also well-structured, practical, and suitable for everyday wear and special occasions alike.

“This disciplined approach to design has been a consistent theme across all my roles and remains at the heart of my work at Chow Tai Fook Jewellery,” he adds.

The Rouge Collection consists of everyday jewellery pieces made from pure gold or 18K gold, red enamel and diamonds. Pure-gold jewellery is rare, valuable and culturally significant. Few jewellery houses create pure-gold jewellery, as working with the soft precious metal involves difficulties and limitations, but this is an area that Chow Tai Fook calls expertise. After all, Chow Tai Fook Jewellery makes a lot of pure-gold wedding jewellery, often with intricate patterns and motifs of dragons, phoenixes and other lucky symbols. The only issue is that wedding jewellery is often only worn during the nuptials, as the designs are relatively hard to carry off in other occasions. 

The launch of the Rouge Collection changes that. While the fortune motif is great for such celebrations, it’s also abstract enough – almost Art Deco-inspired with its clean and straight lines – that it can easily be worn again, paired with anything from formal wear to a white shirt and jeans. Pure-gold bangles and band rings are perfect with the rotating motif, with versions also coming with red enamel and diamonds. 

There are asymmetrical earrings on the edgier side, the character articulated on one side so the squares of red enamel and diamonds move with the wearer’s movements, while the other ear features a single stud design with a single diamond. There are also designs inspired by gold bullions, with the fortune motif marked out by tiny pure-gold bars on earrings and necklaces. 

A few pieces of the Rouge collection are also offered with pearls and gold, intertwining the elegant lustre of the pearls with yellow gold in a selection of necklaces and bracelets. 

There’s also a magnificent fine-jewellery parure with a statement necklace, gold bangles and chandelier earrings, all displaying the abstract motif. “We really wanted to make a bigger statement piece to showcase our expertise, our craftsmanship and our use of gold,” says Lieou. 

The debut of the Rouge collection has been a major hit and marks only the beginning of a new era for Chow Tai Fook, which already has plans for more new designs to join the successful collection – there’s simply so much inspiration to draw on from the brand’s 95-year heritage and legacy. “We have a huge library of craftsmanship techniques, especially in pure gold,” says Lieou. “We take great care to make sure a lot to the ancient Chinese gold techniques are given attention and passed down to younger apprentices so they live on and aren’t lost.”

The brand has a Master Studio that partners with academic institutions in China. “Among the existing 400-plus craftsmen in China, around 40 percent have more than 10 years of experience and a dozen of these master-level craftsmen with more than 30 years of service is with Chow Tai Fook Jewellery,” Lieou says proudly. “I’m looking forward to seeing how we can use these techniques in a contemporary way.”