Interview with Muriel Piaser

From fashion to fine jewellery, a career built on intuition and conviction.

Muriel Piaser has built her career at the intersection of fashion and jewellery, developing a rare expertise: the ability to make two worlds speak to each other that had long ignored one another. Founder of Precious Room by MP and French representative for several leading international trade shows, she talks to us about her journey, her vision for creative jewellery and what drives her every day.

What is your background?

I started out in communications and press relations for several fashion designers, including Atsuro Tayama, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and Jean Paul Gaultier. Those early years gave me a thorough grounding in the fashion industry and its ecosystem.

After a stint in styling, I joined the trade show Who's Next, where I launched the "Fresh" section dedicated to emerging young designers. In 2002, I joined Prêt-à-Porter Paris. Alongside that, I founded The Box in 2005, a trade show entirely focused on designer accessories, which I then helped develop internationally, including in New York. In 2010, I was appointed director of all the Prêt-à-Porter Paris shows, overseeing several events in France and abroad.

From 2011, I founded my own consultancy, Muriel Piaser Consulting, specialising in strategic advisory and international brand development. It was in that context that I began to look more closely at jewellery, and that I launched Precious Room by Muriel Piaser in 2019.

How did you make the move into jewellery?

My transition from fashion to jewellery happened gradually, guided by an intuition: the boundaries between fashion, accessories and jewellery were becoming increasingly blurred. As early as the 2000s, I noticed that designer jewellery was taking up more and more space in concept stores and fashion retail circuits. Working closely with a number of emerging jewellery brands, I was able to identify a market in full evolution, driven in particular by the rise of fine jewellery, a more contemporary, accessible and fashion-forward approach to the craft.

As an international consultant, working with fashion and accessories brands, I kept noticing the same gap: there were very few spaces capable of bringing together the worlds of high fashion and creative jewellery. Fashion buyers were increasingly drawn to precious pieces, while new jewellery brands were eager to gain visibility in fashion circles. That observation led me to found Precious Room by Muriel Piaser in 2019, with a clear vision: to bring jewellery further into the fashion ecosystem, because the piece of jewellery has become not only an object of heritage, but a genuine fashion statement.

You have your own show in Paris, can you tell us more?

Precious Room by Muriel Piaser is a hybrid concept sitting between showroom, trade event and strategic support, designed for creators of fine and high jewellery. Unlike large trade shows hosting several hundred exhibitors, I deliberately chose a more focused format, with a carefully curated selection of brands. That scarcity creates a sense of exclusivity that buyers, journalists and luxury tastemakers genuinely appreciate.

The event is held during the Haute Couture weeks in Paris, when the city welcomes international buyers, celebrities, stylists, department stores and media from around the world, generating a natural flow of highly qualified visitors. My network across fashion, luxury, retail and the specialist press has helped attract influential buyers and well-regarded brands. Over the successive editions, Precious Room by MP has drawn brands from numerous countries and buyers from the United States, the Middle East, Asia and Europe, and regularly features in the trade press covering luxury, jewellery and fashion.

You are the French agent for the Couture show and have significantly grown French participation. What did you take away from the latest edition?

I have the honour of representing the French market for the Couture show in Las Vegas since 2022. My role involves identifying, supporting and recruiting French brands with the potential to exhibit there. The growth in French participation comes down to several factors, not least the rising prominence of French creative jewellery and the international recognition of French style. American buyers are looking for brands with a strong identity, original design and genuine artisanal expertise. France has a particularly powerful image in all of these areas, which makes French designers highly attractive to luxury retailers.

Couture has become the global reference point for the sector. It brings together the leading specialist buyers, department stores and independent retailers from the North American market and beyond every year. For a French brand, exhibiting there represents a major opportunity to accelerate international growth. The United States remains one of the world's leading markets for luxury jewellery, and many French houses now regard Las Vegas as an essential gateway to major American retailers such as Neiman Marcus or Bergdorf Goodman. Several French designers have also received prestigious awards at the Couture Design Awards, reinforcing the visibility and credibility of the French creative scene as a whole. Drawing on my experience across both fashion and jewellery, I have built up a substantial network of designers, buyers and media contacts, and have been able to introduce the show to many independent French houses that had no historical presence in Las Vegas.

Tell us about your other projects with international trade shows and events.

I am constantly working to build an international ecosystem connecting the major strongholds of jewellery and fashion, with the aim of accelerating the global expansion of the brands I represent. In that spirit, I also act as the French market representative for Inhorgenta in Munich and the Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Fair, two unmissable events that reach very different markets and buyer profiles. I am also regularly invited to sit on juries throughout the year, including the Romanian Jewelry Week and the Birmingham Jewellery Festival, which keeps me closely connected to emerging scenes and helps me spot new talent.

What are the success stories you are most proud of, and what drives you in this profession day to day?

My success stories are, above all, human stories. A young house I have been working with for months that lands its first major American account, that sees its pieces on display at a New York retailer it never imagined reaching so quickly, those are the moments that give this work real meaning.

What I love about what I do is that every brand is a new challenge. The codes are never the same, the markets neither, and you have to constantly adapt your strategy, anticipate, find the right people. It is the kind of behind-the-scenes work that often goes unnoticed, but the results always show in the end.

As for keeping up with the pace of travel, the formula is fairly straightforward: rigorous organisation, looking after yourself, sport and a great deal of love.