Alexa Chung, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Mina Added Some Sparkle to Last Night’s Boucheron Bash

There are just a few retailers who take up a coveted spot on the famed, octagonal Place Vendôme in Paris. There’s shirtmaker Charvet, one of the 12 Chanel outposts in the City of Lights, and plenty of watchmakers. Then, just a stone’s throw from the front steps of The Ritz, there is Boucheron.

Such is why an outline in the unmistakable shape of the Place Vendome could be found on the invitation beckoning guests uptown to 91st Street last night, where the Parisian haute jeweler celebrated the opening of their first New York boutique on Madison Avenue at the nearby Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.

Inside, the former home of industrial magnate Andrew Carngie-turned-haven for all things architecture and design had been reimagined into a gallery space highlighting archival and new—or perhaps the right term is futuristic—pieces from the brand that ranged from an art nouveau butterfly brooch from 1900 and worn by Elizabeth Taylor to the 1976 Oscars as a hairpiece to a new ring referred to as “Quatre 5D memory,” in which vast amounts of sound data is encoded into nanostructured glass and preserved for billions of years. Futuristic indeed.

Also causing a traffic jam of admirers in the maze of galleries was a cascading diamond necklace that swayed in the breeze of passersby and nearly reached the floor. The 148 cm creation took a staggering 3,000 hours to produce and is the longest piece ever made by the Boucheron workshops, comprised of 1816 diamonds.

The installation gave way to a cocktail party in the museum’s garden, where stemware clinked and diamonds worn by the likes of Hailee Steinfeld, K-Pop sensation Mina, and Gwyneth Paltrow glistened. Paltrow, alongside husband Brad Falchuk, took in the scene from the sofas that had been dotted around the lawn as Colman Domingo and Alexa Chung rubbed shoulders and dreamt up new ideas for jewels with the brand's CEO Hélène Poulit-Duquesne, Creative Director Claire Choisne, and CEO of Kering, François-Henri Pinault.

Later, crooner Leon Bridges performed his hits Texas Sun, River, a new tune, Laredo for a crowd that extended far beyond the gates of the museum garden where onlookers had gathered to witness this momentous kickoff of Boucheron’s new chapter in Manhattan.