Her creations are part of the permanent collections at the Smithsonian in Washington, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. There is at least a five-year waiting list for her butterfly brooches. She has been honored by the French Order of Arts and Letters, with the country’s minister of culture in 2021 describing her work as “at the crossroads between goldsmith, sculpture and architecture.”
She is the Taiwanese jeweler Cindy Chao, 50, whose range of jeweled pins, bangles, earrings and necklaces is known for its fusion of Eastern and Western design sensibilities. Despite the international accolades, however, when asked to sum up the achievements of her brand, Cindy Chao The Art Jewel, as it turns 20 this year, the word that came to her mind was survival.
“I think for a lot of creators in the beginning, you create to survive,” she said, sitting in a light-filled studio at her Taipei headquarters, overlooking the Regent hotel, where the brand opened its first gallery in 2022. “I just wanted to survive so that people could continue to see my work.”
Ms. Chao credits her success not to being “so gifted or outstanding,” she said, but to perseverance — especially in light of significant obstacles.
As a single mother who made what she called the “painful decision” to send her only son overseas to boarding school at age nine, Ms. Chao was also a young, female Asian jeweler in an industry dominated by men. High jewelry also is predominantly a Western discipline, rooted in European culture. “You need to work extra hard to prove where you are and who you are,” Ms. Chao said.
But recognition eventually came. “The first five years, people looked at me and thought: ‘Oh, Cindy Chao — another incoming, young jewelry designer’. Then at the next five, it was: ‘Maybe let’s have a look and see what she does. Ten years means something.’”
After 15 years, she said, “They saw me in the industry. People said, ‘Wow that’s a record. She’s there — and she has her position.’”
The independent brand does not report financial results but Ms. Chao said that in the past five years, revenues have doubled and profit nearly tripled. The company has 200 employees, 60 of whom are based in Taipei, where the pieces are designed. The jewels are produced in Switzerland, where the brand employs around 50 craftsmen across four ateliers, she said.
She is proud to say that she started her brand from her living room in Taipei, adding that she realized early on that international acknowledgment was key.
“Once you get international recognition it’s always easier to come back to this side of the world,” she said.
In 2007, she became the first Taiwanese jeweler to participate in a fine jewelry sale at Christie’s New York. In 2010, her Royal Butterfly brooch was added to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. The piece is signature Cindy Chao, with its rich smorgasbord of color coming from 2,318 colored gemstones and diamonds (including four large rough diamond slices), all set in an impressive three-dimensional form.
Today the Cindy Chao offering is split between two lines: the ultra high-end Black Label, of which only around 10 pieces are made each year; and the White Label, which features between 150 and 200 pieces. Nature is a strong theme, with representations of butterflies but also dragonflies, flowers, leaves, branches and even cardamom seeds and ribbons.
Ms. Chao’s signature style, set in sculptural and architectural forms, was instilled at an early age: Her grandfather was the architect behind several important national temples in Taiwan, while her father was a sculptor. Through her grandfather, Ms. Chao said, she learned how to play with color, or what she called her “blueprint” for light and space. “Architecture for me is a mind-set,” she said. “It is about the art of arranging color, light and shades in a space governed by its structure.”
From her father came emotion. “He explained to me: ‘A great sculptor captures a moment of life,’” said Ms. Chao, who first sculpts her creations using the lost wax technique, which her craftsmen then use to execute and gem-set the designs.
Her jewels notably capture a fleeting moment in time. Hence a butterfly looks set to take flight; or a bow is seconds from unraveling, as in a spectacular ribbon ring set with an 8.03-carat so-called pigeon’s blood ruby. The piece sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 2013 for 29.8 million Hong Kong dollars, or $3.05 million at current exchange rates, setting a record for an Asian contemporary art jewel.
“She really created a movement for Asian female designers,” said Wendy Lin, chairwoman of Sotheby’s Asia, who has known Ms. Chao for more than 20 years. “Cindy was a pioneer in making jewelry more three dimensional. It really became a work of art.”
Ms. Lin credited Ms. Chao’s “drive, creativity, and bold and courageous spirit” as keys to her success. “She is a super hard worker and committed to perfection,” she said by phone from Taipei.
For the 50th anniversary of Sotheby’s Asia last year, Ms. Chao was named a “female artist extraordinaire” who was breaking barriers and changing the art world. The auction house has been behind several of the brand’s milestones, including a Ballerina Butterfly Brooch from 2014, set with brown-yellow and Champagne-colored diamonds and conch pearls. The piece was a collaboration with the actress Sarah Jessica Parker and sold for 9.4 million Hong Kong dollars at Sotheby’s, with net proceeds being donated to the New York City Ballet.
Ms. Chao said Asian clients made up around 60 percent of her client base today, with the rest being international. That was not always the case. Ms. Chao had predominantly Western clients until she decided, in the middle of the coronavirus outbreak in China, to ditch plans for a showroom in London and to open in Shanghai instead.
“I didn’t think the pandemic would last three years. I didn’t foresee that all the Chinese would be locked down in China and that the market would be booming,” Ms. Chao recalled. “But people recognized Cindy Chao — not because Cindy Chao was a new brand, but because it was an international one.”
For the brand’s 20th anniversary, Ms. Chao has created a 20-piece collection introduced in Taipei last month. It will travel to Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Bangkok and the Middle East before finishing its tour in Paris. Collectors are being limited to buying just one piece, she said.
For her 10th anniversary, she had created a 30-piece collection but this editing down reflects a new direction — some would say a maturing — of the Cindy Chao brand. While most jewelers at 20 years would probably expand their collections, Ms. Chao seems to be doing the opposite.
“If I overexhausted myself to reach 20 years, now I need to work smart — to make sure this legacy will last and continue to inspire,” Ms. Chao said. While she may create fewer pieces, each one feels more significant — the brand’s starting price is around $150,000 today, up from approximately $20,000 a decade ago. And the designs feel more streamlined: Eight pieces in the 20th anniversary collection, for example, were inspired by a single subject — a leaf — representing the cycle of life and time passing through the seasons.
And rather than the rich medley of color that once defined Cindy Chao, her recent work feels more muted. An example is the Lumière Feather Brooch that the Academy Award-winning actress Michelle Yeoh wore to the Vanity Fair Oscars party in March. Set with a 19.14-carat heart-shaped diamond, the oversize titanium brooch had a notably tonal and neutral palette from more than 2,400 stones.
“Looking back at my early work, I was trying so hard because I was so afraid people didn’t know how good I was,” Ms. Chao said. “I wanted to make everything elaborate. Now I make everything so simple.”
With the brand poised to begin its third decade, her vision seems clearer than ever. But early struggles still offer comfort and inspiration. “When you’re in a struggle, you don’t see it,” Ms. Chao said. “But afterward — it’s a metamorphosis.”
