PARIS — While most companies would mark a milestone with a blow-out bash, for Nouvel Héritage, celebrating its 10th anniversary meant spending even more time at the workbench.

The French fine jewelry brand will be unveiling its first high jewelry designs on Tuesday during Paris Couture Week.

“We thought it was the perfect way to close the first chapter of the brand,” New York-based founder and chief executive officer Camille Parruitte McKenna told WWD in a preview.

When she launched Nouvel Héritage in 2015, its initial small series of jewels was made in a Paris high jewelry workshop whose other clients include major Place Vendôme names.

“It felt right to tie back with the beginning of the story,” she continued. “Finding this high jewelry workshop but starting with a collection that was more approachable in terms of price point, then growing back to a level where we can be one of [their professional] high jewelry clients.”

Now the Mood design, which owes its distinctive shape to the punk movement and its piercings, has turned into a torque necklace.

Requiring 300 hours of jewelry work and 130 hours of gem-setting, it’s an imposing white gold design with 856 diamonds weighing a total of almost 18 carats, punctuated with three cushion-cut tourmalines. Its central chain element can be worn separately as a bracelet.

Likewise, Latch’s drawstring toggle and sneaker shoelace meant to telegraph streetwear cool are given the haute treatment — and a high-tech twist.

The 18-karat chain was created using additive metal techniques, which sees gold powder shaped into solid links using 3D printing. Links come out already interlaced, with a precision and time frame impossible to achieve with human hands, who were already busy enough setting the 2,752 diamonds the design also called for.

A trio of pieces marks the introduction of the “Try Me” line, a new chunky chain design that will make its way into Nouvel Héritage’s fine jewelry ranges in coming months.

A diamond-set double ring in yellow gold and ceramic, a chain link necklace with a 3D-printed clasp and a brooch play on the idea of a chain broken and soldered back together, with spiky U-shaped links with the point turned inwards meant to express strength without causing injury.

These high jewelry pieces are priced between $110,000 for the Try Me ring and $400,000 for the Latch masterpiece necklace.

But the high jewelry designs aren’t just a way to celebrate the decade Parruitte McKenna  spent growing her business from an order of 15 pieces to thousands of gem-set pieces a year.

It’s also a tip of the hat to her family’s longstanding connections with the jewelry world.

Her mother, Marie-Christine Grocq Parruitte, was at the helm of Cartier International in the ’90s and early 2000s and went on to develop MCGP, a group that comprises two jewelry workshops in France and a Paris-based atelier, where an already passionate Parruitte McKenna would spend summers working.

But she didn’t immediately go into the family business. At the age of 18, Parruitte McKenna went off to the U.S. solo, to study finance in Boston. But after graduating from Northeastern University in business administration, her heritage and passion for jewelry caught up with her and Nouvel Héritage was born.

These days, it’s a healthy business that has offices in Paris and New York, employing around 10 staff across both countries.

The U.S. is the French brand’s main market, a territory boasting 46 points of sale spread across the country. Texas, in particular Houston and Dallas, holds the biggest concentration of prominent accounts, said Parruitte McKenna, who has been based in New York since 2017.

In 2023, the brand spread across France with doors in Paris and cities like Bordeaux and Marseille and has since launched in Geneva and Madrid, with further European openings coming every month.

While Parruitte McKenna declined to give sales figures, she said the company had sold north of 1,000 of her bestselling Mood bangles in the past 12 months, up from 15 pieces in its first year. In 2024, turnover grew 75 percent year-on-year and since the beginning of 2025, the company has already doubled what it did last year.

Looking ahead, the company has plans to attend jewelry fairs in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, working to open the Middle Eastern market by the end of this year.

As for its high jewelry development, it might be more guest star than permanent cast member. But the jury is still out.

“So far, [reception] has been pretty positive, considering we already sold one of the five pieces before the unveiling,” said Parruitte McKenna. “But this is our little test to see if this is something we’re going to do every year.”