Luxury customers are rethinking how they buy jewelry, increasingly pairing contemporary, design-led pieces with their high-end staples. In step, the 13-year-old British jewelry brand Astrid & Miyu is opening its second New York store this October on NYC’s Madison Avenue.
Known for stackable gold styles and in-store experiences like piercings and bracelet welding, the London-based brand sees the move as a strategic bet on a customer who values quality, design and immediacy over legacy logos.
Astrid & Miyu’s jewelry ranges in price from $65 to $900. Over 50% of the jewelry is solid gold, with fine jewelry comprising 20% of the assortment. The U.S. currently accounts for 10% of sales, with a goal to reach 50% within the next five years. The U.S. retail expansion is being funded entirely through existing cash flow. Beyond the U.K. and U.S., 10% of sales come from Europe, with Ireland and the Netherlands showing the fastest growth.
Astrid & Miyu’s U.S. story began in 2023 with its NYC West Village store, which quickly lifted its domestic e-commerce sales and Instagram following, according to founder and CEO Connie Nam. “West Village was always a dream of ours,” said Nam. “It’s a very good brand fit; our customers are there.” She noted that a store-first approach proved far more effective than leading with digital in the states. “People can touch and feel what the brand is about,” she said.
Madison Avenue has traditionally been a corridor for heritage houses including Hermès, Ralph Lauren and Prada, but in recent years, it has welcomed more contemporary labels. Reformation opened there in 2021, and Ganni debuted nearby in 2023, with both attracting a mix of style-conscious locals and international shoppers, according to Nam, who surveyed the stores when considering the location.
Nam likened the area’s customers to “Gossip Girl and their moms and their grandmas,” much like the younger luxury shoppers on London’s King’s Road and in Notting Hill, she said.
The Madison Avenue store will carry Astrid & Miyu’s core jewelry assortment alongside location-exclusive pieces and a focus on services. “We’re going to create more theater in the Madison Avenue store,” Nam said. “We have the on-arm bracelet welding station at the window so people can see that performance up close. Americans love that.” U.S. regulations allow customers to take customized pieces home immediately, in contrast to the hallmarking process in the U.K., where customized pieces from any fine-jewelry brand must be sent for official assay and marking before delivery. At Astrid & Miyu, in-store customization primarily involves engraving and bracelet welding. Custom pieces also include charm necklaces.
Nam said U.S. customers have shown a strong preference for chunkier, solid gold pieces, with less price resistance than in the U.K. This aligns with trends across jewelry brands like Jennifer Fisher and Foundrae, which have expanded their solid gold offerings for American buyers. Astrid & Miyu is also developing more 14-karat and 18-carat styles and creating localized exclusives, such as palm tree charms for Los Angeles, where the brand will soon open stores, and martini glass charms for New York.
Operationally, the brand is applying lessons from the West Village opening. Having a second New York store means staff can cover for each other, teams can share training and best practices, and stores can work together on local marketing — all benefits that brands like Mejuri, Brilliant Earth, Gorjana and Catbird have achieved by clustering multiple stores in a single city.
The brand will follow the same model in Los Angeles, with Abbot Kinney and Silver Lake stores set to open by the end of the year. “Abbot Kinney is more like Soho: quite touristy, very busy, and you’ve got the cosmopolitan customers — and it’s more for brand awareness,” Nam said. Silver Lake, meanwhile, is “a Brooklyn and Shoreditch equivalent,” Nam said, in part because the brand has a strong local following. In the long term, Nam said she sees potential for eight or nine stores in Los Angeles.
Astrid & Miyu’s U.S. e-commerce revenue in New York state is up 176% in the past two years, which Nam partly attributed to its community-first approach at its West Village store. “Experiential retail is at the heart of A&M,” she said. Events tied to moments like Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving and product launches have ranged from iced tea service on summer days to intimate workshops and astrology readings. For its part, the Madison Avenue opening weekend will feature multiple activations to connect with the Upper East Side community from day one.
The U.S. expansion has prompted leadership changes. Astrid & Miyu has hired a New York–based vp of Retail. The company is also relocating a U.K. area manager to support operations. In 2023, Astrid & Miyu generated £34 million ($43 million) in revenue and is projecting around 50% growth in 2025.
“We might need a local marketing team and a local ops team,” Nam said. “The org chart will look very different in the next five years. We’ll need to give up control and trust the people [in the states].”
Nam said she is also watching external factors, including rising gold prices and newly announced U.S. tariffs on gold. In early August 2025, gold prices hit a record high of more than $3,500 per ounce after the U.S. imposed a surprise 39% tariff on Swiss gold bar imports, disrupting a key supply route for jewelry makers. Prices have since eased slightly as the administration signaled possible exemptions, but volatility remains high. For Astrid & Miyu, that could mean margin pressure on its 14-karat and 18-karat collections and potential sourcing challenges for solid gold pieces in the U.S., making it even more important to balance price, design and materials to maintain its “everyday luxury” positioning.
According to Bain & Company’s 2024 Luxury Goods Worldwide Market Study, the global personal luxury goods market grew 8% to $393 billion, with jewelry outperforming other categories, growing 12% year-over-year. On July 23, LVMH, management credited “another record year” for Jewelry & Watches to strong high jewelry sales at Bulgari and Tiffany, particularly in gold and precious stones, with robust demand from both local and tourist customers across the U.S., Japan and Europe. Kering CFO Armelle Poulou said on the company’s July 25 earnings call that its jewelry houses — Boucheron, Pomellato and Qeelin — “were more resilient” than other categories, benefiting from loyal local clientele and sustained interest in fine jewelry collections. Richemont also reported growth across its Jewelry Maisons on May 17, citing “a healthy appetite for fine jewelry” globally, and double-digit growth in high jewelry at Van Cleef & Arpels and Cartier.
