de Boulle Diamond & Jewelry BIG COOL NO. 1
The Boulles: Nick, Karen, Denis and Emma
What sort of advertising
before we even started. The concrete was soaked and we had to get a special machine to dry it out.” Have you faced other challenges? 3 “If it were easy to open a second loca- tion, everyone would do it. We opened in Dallas right before 9/11. And in Houston we moved in in November while the price of oil crashed. But oil is coming back. People are very positive. Houston is going to be a bigger market than Dallas for Patek. And we created a template we can reproduce.” Where did the store’s name come from? 4 “The Boulle name stems from Parisian André Charles Boulle. (1642 to 1732) who
became known for his skillful work in the field of marquetry. His style of work was eventu- ally dubbed ‘Boulle.’ In French, ‘de’ means ‘of’ or ‘from’ — ‘of Boulle’ or ‘from Boulle.’ Having ‘de’ in front of your last name in France also carries stature in the French language and in Europe.”
have you done? 5 “Patek has been instrumental in every way, using their PR machine to get stories for us, for example. There’s been a tremen- dous amount of media exposure, every major magazine in the city.”
FIVE QUESTIONS WITH DENIS BOULLE
Is it tough to sell fine watches to millennials? 1 “Many Patek Philippe customers are 25 to 35 years old, earn good incomes and have developed a passion for timepieces. My son is 27 years old and his
friends all love watches. The perception that the next generation rely on iPhones and gadgets at the expense of watches is totally wrong. They have a bigger passion for watches, almost, than older people. Watches are a point of differen-
tiation for young profes- sionals.” Did you have any setbacks during construction? 2 “The floor is the obvious one. There had been a lot of rain and there was water leakage
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