On the occasion of Courbet announcement, last week, of a fundraising of more than 8 million euros, Le Boudoir Numérique talked with its co-founder, Manuel Mallen about his future development plans for his sustainable and technological jewellery brand.

By Ludmilla Intravaia 

Le Boudoir Numérique : You have announced a fundraising of more than 8 million euros, intended to accelerate the development of your sustainable jewellery brand. How do you intend to use those funds?

First, we will invest in French diamond. Today, lab-grown diamonds are produced in the United States and Russia, but not in France. We want to create a diamond factory in our country and thus have a 100% French jewellery, strong from its local craftmanship and production. We work with Diam Concept, an experimental French laboratory, founded by researcher Alix Gicquel, who has already supplied us with fourteen diamonds. But Courbet needs thousands of diamonds. Diam Concept will soon launch a fundraising, in which we will participate, in order to increase the production of French diamonds, both in quality and in quantity. We work Place Vendôme, in Paris, using only the most beautiful diamonds, in terms of colors and purity. Some people think that diamond production in the laboratory is very easy, that its results, fruit of a simple reproduction mechanism, are always identical, like cloning, in a way. But it's extremely complicated to make very beautiful diamonds. We must therefore give ourselves the means to go further, by investing in the research and production of this French diamond. The second thing we are going to do is develop ourselves abroad and make ourselves known there, especially on the Chinese market, an extremely digital market, often underestimated but where ecology is a real subject. We are fortunate to count among our investors the Chinese digital communication agency Hylink who supports us in this specific market.


In the press release of your fundraising, you affirm your will to continue to assume your "pioneering role in ecological and technological jewellery". What is this role and how will you make it evolve?

What enabled us to create Courbet, two years ago, was the technology, the tech to produce lab-grown diamonds, the tech to recover gold from electronic components, graphics cards and computers, tech to have an efficient website. Technology is extremely present, since the beginning at Courbet, we use it every day. What is stimulating is that this gold from an extremely complex recycling process, this laboratory diamond, fruit of CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique, AN) research, land in the workshop of artisans who, from generation to generation, cultivate their art in the same way, in the respect of tradition. Our bet was to combine luxury, sustainability and digital, technology having allowed us to obtain this lab-grown diamond exactly identical to the mined diamond. Very often, when a brand wants to be ecological, it is obliged to make concessions on the aesthetics of the product or on the quality of the materials. We, thanks to technology, make no such compromises. And we are constantly working on new technological solutions such as trying on jewelry using virtual reality, for example to be able to position a ring on your hand, using your phone and see it move in a realistic manner, as if you were really wearing it or 3D printed jewels so that customers who want tailor-made can test the volumes in our showroom. We will also soon integrate a personalization module on our website allowing the customer to create jewellery as he pleases, on the internet.

And in terms of ecology?

From the start, we have been working with lab-grown diamonds, which are much less polluting than mined diamonds (more information in this Boudoir Numérique article "Technology at the service of eco-friendly fine jewellery"). We make sure that the energy we use is clean, green and renewable. Our Russian diamonds are produced with hydroelectric power, those from the United States with solar one. It is not yet perfect because fossil or nuclear energies are not yet completely excluded from our circuit but we are trying to improve ourselves as much as possible so that in the future all our energy is clean. This will be the case for our manufacture in particular. In this quest, every detail counts. Take the case of our jewellery boxes. For the moment, they are made with recycled leather from a workshop recovering the scraps of this material which, kneaded, are reused. But we are considering other innovative alternatives, like cactus leather, for example. We are also thinking about the second life of the box, which is generally put aside, after the purchase. Couldn't the box be reused? We must also take advantage of the internet, which is certainly polluting but offers solutions that are simple to implement on a daily basis. For the past two years, we have been offering our customers the possibility to meet via Skype or FaceTime, a practice that was initially in its infancy and has become widespread with the general public since the Coronavirus crisis. When you live in Lyon, Bordeaux or Toulouse, visiting our showroom by videoconference, for example for a first meeting, saves a trip. Our customers really appreciate this system, we are very satisfied with it.

How do you see the future of your business?

For the moment, we are the only ones in the world to offer ecological high-end jewellery. But soon others will follow and we will have to stay ahead of the game, with the help of technology. But above all, we must continue to create beautiful jewels, because when buying a ring, for example, the first thing that matters is the aesthetics. Bringing together beauty and good is what drives us. So far, this approach has attracted our customers and we intend to confirm this success in the long run.

* Courbet jewels are available at the jeweller's showroom, 7 place Vendôme, 75001 Paris (by appointment), in the dedicated boutique of the Printemps Haussmann department store, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris and on the Courbet website, to discover here. Diam Concept's website is here.

* Continue reading on Courbet with this Boudoir Numérique interview : "Technology at the service of eco-friendly fine jewellery"