David Webb is under new ownership — and has a new chief executive officer as well.
The heritage jewelry brand has been acquired by Middle West Partners, the Boston-based private equity firm, and has named James Weiss its new CEO. Weiss has been an adviser to the brand since 2017, is an investor at Redstone Road, and previously spent time at Palantir Technologies and Bain & Company.
In an exclusive interview with WWD, Weiss declined to specify terms of the deal or the company’s annual revenue.
He did say, though, that the brand was “bigger than the business.”
“Our job as stewards of this house is to do no harm, and to make sure that the work we’re doing is to provide a strong foundation for this business to be able to grow, create an extraordinary culture so we can attract the best talent,” he said.
The house was founded by David Webb in 1948. In 2010, it was bought following Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings by Mark Emanuel, Sima Ghadamian and Robert Sadian.
“Middle West Partners doesn’t have a specific sunset for their fund, so they are unusually well suited to the long-term stewardship of a luxury house,” Weiss said of the new ownership.
Weiss sees a plethora of opportunities for the brand, from retail expansion to finding new ways to attract like-minded clientele.
“The David Webb customer, primarily women, we talk about as being one who is self-possessed. This is someone who can and will wear David Webb jewelry wherever and whenever she wants,” Weiss said. “Our job is to make sure that we are where our customers are.”
From a retail perspective, that means deepening its footprint in the U.S., which currently entails boutiques in New York and Los Angeles. David Webb also has a door in Doha, and the brand has “a real love for the Middle East,” Weiss said.
That doesn’t mean he’s not measured in his approach. “When you’re making extraordinary creations and providing high luxury experiences, expanding by 10 or 20 stores a year — even if there were demand for that — would probably be irresponsible,” he said.
Weiss doesn’t think about new customers in terms of demographics, reasoning that the core customer ranges in age. “In luxury, people immediately ask how you’re going to get a younger customer. I’m not thinking about age per se, I’m thinking about psychographic and who the David Webb woman is. We’ve found that we have women of all ages.
“What I do know is there are a lot of women who either don’t know about David Webb, or may have forgotten about the brand. We want to reach more of those,” he continued. “The most important white space is a higher market share within that psychographic. Our share is still low compared to the opportunity.”
From a product perspective, Weiss acknowledged that the brand’s prices range from four figures to seven, but his core operates in the $25,000 to $125,000 range.
“David Webb is known for bold designs, intricate hammering work, the use of rock crystal and the unusual opaque and semitransparent stones, as well as semiprecious stones. We will look to the brand to continue to innovate while focusing on that design vocabulary,” he said. “We’re figuring out where the innovation opportunities will come from and how we will evolve.”
In terms of marketing the brand’s next chapter, “the playbook evolves every day,” Weiss said. “It’s about making sure you reach a special customer, often who is very, very hard to reach and for whom traditional media is probably not efficient. I’m thinking about events, collaborations, and making sure we support creative directors and the creative expression of David Webb.”