Exclusive Interview: Clara Dufour from Françoise Paris on Finding the Watch and Jewellery of Your Dreams ⌚️
Today, we’re sharing our interview with Clara Dufour, who offers insights into Françoise Paris' mission to help women find the perfect vintage watches and jewellery.
Hello Tech Powered Luxury listener, and now reader!
🎙️ Ever wondered how to find the perfect vintage luxury watch? This week, we introduce you to Clara Dufour, who offers an inside look into the world of luxury vintage timepieces.
🌟 Are you new here? Welcome to our amazing community - keep reading to discover everything about Tech Powered Luxury, our Community Rewards and how this newsletter came to life.
💎 I’m Laoise O’Connell and I’m very excited to welcome you to today’s edition!
👀 TL;DR
Clara Dufour and Françoise Paris are dedicated to helping women find their dream vintage luxury watches, creating a space in what has traditionally been a male-dominated industry. ⌚️
Women are increasingly investing in vintage timepieces, not just for their beauty but for their craftsmanship, heritage, and long-term value, signaling a shift in luxury watch collecting. 👩🏻
Digital innovation and social media, especially Instagram, are key to Françoise Paris' international growth and community engagement. 📲
Engagement watches are emerging as a meaningful alternative or addition to rings, offering a timeless, symbolic, and practical way to mark a commitment. 💍
Clara Dufour and the New Era of Female Watch Collectors 💫
Historically, luxury watch collecting has been a male-dominated space, with luxury watch brands primarily designing and marketing their products for men. However, the tides are changing. Women are increasingly investing in vintage timepieces—not just for their beauty, but for their craftsmanship, heritage, and value retention. The female segment is steadily growing, and brands like Cartier and Rolex are seeing a rising demand for women’s vintage models.
This week, we sat down with Clara Dufour to learn more about her role at Françoise Paris, where she lives the dream, surrounded by some of the most exceptional watches and jewellery. ⭐️
Clara Dufour is passionate about entrepreneurship and the expertise of great luxury brands. She joined Françoise Paris as an Associate one year ago to help women find the vintage watch and jewellery of their dreams. She loves sharing her passion for beautifully crafted, timeless pieces! ✨
🎤 Who are you and what lead you to where you are today?
"My name is Clara Dufour. I joined Françoise Paris to help the company grow. I play various roles within it to achieve this goal, so you could say that I’m the Business Developer. After building my career in start-ups in the food, perfume, and fashion sectors as a Digital Marketing Manager—and driven since the age of ten by the desire to become an entrepreneur and work with beautiful objects—I was immediately enthusiastic about Françoise Paris' project when I was asked to join as an Associate. I was also eager to develop my own business while contributing to the growth of the second-hand sector. Now, I’m also working on creating a large community around vintage watches and luxurious second-hand products in general."
✨ Tell us about your company’s mission! Do you have a mantra, a statement that you and your teams live by?
"Our mission at Françoise Paris is to help every woman find the watch and jewellery of her dreams, from a carefully chosen selection of luxury vintage pieces—from the most emblematic to the most original—designed by renowned Maisons, including Cartier, Boucheron, Rolex, Piaget, and more.
Our statement is to accompany, reassure, and advise women on watches and jewellery that we would wear ourselves - to act as an intermediary between the unstructured world of vintage women’s watchmaking and customers. An opportunity to share a passion!"
⚡️ What’s a random fact about your company that people will be able to remember you by?
"People are always asking us who Françoise is, and the funny thing is that no one is named Françoise inside Françoise Paris! Actually, we wanted a very French name but also a vintage one. It had to be a woman's name, of course, to respect our idea of a woman accompanying another woman in the rather masculine world of second-hand watchmaking. We thought of our 20th-century icons - Françoise Hardy, Françoise Sagan, and Françoise Dorléac - and it was an obvious choice!"
👩🏻 What kind of customer do you imagine your brand is for?
"Françoise Paris is for women who love beauty! Those who appreciate the craftsmanship of great Maisons for their quality and creativity. They like to own beautiful things that they’ll treasure for a lifetime and perhaps even pass on to their daughters. We have many Parisian customers who choose us to accompany them in the acquisition of their first luxury watch, often to mark their 30th birthday. Thirty is also the age when you’re more mature, you know what you want, who you are, and you want to own objects - like jewels, bags, or clothes - that will stay with you for a long time."
🤳🏼 Where do you see the future of your business? How important is digital and technology in making that happen?
"To our great satisfaction, our business is already international, and digital and tech have a lot to do with it. We need to create an e-commerce experience that is as simple as possible while providing as much detail as possible on each of our pieces, given their price and the specificities of the watchmaking world. We also need to ensure that the luxury experience is present at every stage of the customer's digital journey, so we're always striving to do better! With each new feature offered by e-commerce innovations, we ask ourselves whether it can be adapted to our business.
We’ve also discovered the ever-growing importance of socials in our business. Instagram is our primary contact channel! Having an engaged community - our fans, customers, influencers, partners, and friends in the industry - allows us to increase our presence on social media and gain both notoriety and credibility. This year, we launched on LinkedIn, Pinterest, and TikTok, and we’re already seeing great results!"
🪄 If you had a magic wand, what would you change about your day to day work life?
"If I were given a magic wand, I'd definitely choose to have a showroom! The idea of having a space dedicated to Françoise Paris, where each of our customers can step into our world, take the time to connect with us, and share in our passion for watches, jewellery, art, and beautiful things, is truly our greatest dream! I imagine it as a place where arts and crafts come together, friendships are made, and the world of second-hand luxury continues to flourish. We promise you'll all be very welcome when our showroom opens!"
🫶🏽 Anything else you’d like to add?
"At Françoise Paris, we believe it's important to bring sustainability, beauty, and essential things - like telling the time on an analog watch (not a screen) - back into our lives. The watches and jewellery we sell are sometimes over 100 years old; they are objects that have stories to tell, and they will share with us the greatest joys of our lives. We really want to share our passion with you, so stay tuned for the surprises coming in 2025!"
I love Clara’s story and what they’re doing at Françoise Paris. During my time at Chanel, while working in the watches and fine jewellery department, I spotted some really exciting emerging trends. One of my favourites was engagement watches - a durable and practical alternative for those less likely to wear a ring, but also a deeply symbolic choice. A timepiece can beautifully represent the passage of time and the quality time spent with a partner. 👰🏽♀️🤵🏽
Unlike traditional engagement rings, which are often worn exclusively by one partner, an engagement watch offers a more gender-neutral and reciprocal approach to marking such a meaningful commitment. It’s a piece that can be cherished daily, seamlessly blending function and sentimentality. We are seeing more and more couples embracing this idea, drawn to the longevity and heirloom potential of a finely crafted watch.
Beyond its practicality, an engagement watch can also be a reflection of personal style and shared taste. Whether it’s a vintage Cartier Tank, a timeless Rolex Datejust, or a delicate Piaget with intricate detailing, the choice of watch tells a story - just like an engagement ring does.
What do you think? Would you consider an engagement watch over - or in addition to - a ring? I personally love the concept and think it’s a lovely, thoughtful gesture for those who appreciate timeless elegance and craftsmanship. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
We hope you enjoyed this special interview edition.
As always, thank you for reading!
Until next time,
Laoise 🖤
🫶🏽 Our Partner This Season: Azure Communications
This season’s sponsor of the Tech Powered Luxury podcast is Azure Communications, and we’re thrilled to continue our partnership with them. For quite some time now, Azure has been our go-to provider for all things print and marketing. Whether it’s branded materials for our content, from print and direct mail to event invitations, they’ve been behind the scenes making it all happen.
If you’re looking for top-tier branded collateral, print services, or marketing support, we highly recommend checking them out.
You can visit them at www.azurecomm.ie or follow them on Instagram at @AzureCommunications.
🎁 Community Rewards
Your skin deserves a treat! 💆♀️ Seoulista Beauty® is giving 20% off to our subscribers through the code TPL20* on checkout. Known for its dermatologist-tested bio-cellulose facials, the products infuse potent serums deep into the skin, delivering salon-grade results in 20 minutes.
*TPL20 is a one-time-use code, with no minimum order purchase and valid across the range on seoulistabeauty.com. Cannot be combined with other discounts.
💫 Who are we and what led us here today?
🎙️ Launched as a podcast on November 1st 2022 by Ashley McDonnell, Tech Powered Luxury has since nurtured a vibrant community of experts passionate about the evolving synergy between technology and luxury. We have reached over 20 million people through the podcast, social platforms and media, and have hit +500K downloads.
🪄 This season, our weekly newsletter will be curated by Laoise O’Connell, a luxury marketeer with experience in client relations and communications at fashion houses and global brands Chanel and Givenchy in Paris. Laoise has been a proud contributor to Tech Powered Luxury since Season 1 and we are excited to have her guide our content for the newsletter this season and look forward to the insights she will bring. 💎
 | A guest post by
|
 |
|