Louis Vuitton to unveil jewellery studio, perfume

ROME - French luxury brand Louis Vuitton will open a boutique and jewellery studio on Paris' Place Vendome this spring and is preparing its first perfume, the label's head Yves Carcelle told AFP Friday.

"In April we will have our own jewellery workshop and in May will will open our boutique in the same building," Carcelle said during the inauguration of the "Maison Rome Etoile," Louis Vuitton's new shop in the eternal city.

Vuitton store opening in Rome, Jan 27 2012 (Photo : AFP/Gabriel Bouys)

The project, unveiled in an area of Paris synonymous with luxury, will allow Louis Vuitton to "rejoin the exclusive club of the few jewellers who have their own workshops on the Place" and make the coveted adornments in situ, he said.

Carcelle said there was no timetable yet for the perfume launch -- and revelled in the fact that luxury meant not having to bow to pressure.

"We just at the beginning. We've recruited the famous 'nose', Jacques Cavallier, and we are in the final phase of buying a country house in Grasse," on the French Riviera, where the perfume laboratory will be built, he said.

"It's like when we recruited Marc Jacobs and they asked us the date of the first collection, we replied 'when Marc is ready': it's the same thing here, now it's 'when Jacques is ready'," Carcelle said.

The master perfumer, 49, is the "nose" behind L'Eau d'Issey, Dior Addict, Poeme by Lancôme and Stella by Stella McCartney.

The deal will make Louis Vuitton one of the few labels in the world with its own exclusive "nose", along with Chanel, Dior, Guerlain, Hermes and Cartier.

Louis Vuitton, which began making bags in 1854, branched out into ready-to-wear, shoes, watches and sunglasses in the 1990s and 2000s.

Carcelle did not want to say how many new Louis Vuitton boutiques will open in 2012, but he did say that "the two new frontiers will be the opening of a shop in Amman in Jordan and another in September in Almaty, in Kazakhstan."