Les Néréides

Les Néréides is a French costume-jewellery and fragrance house founded in 1980 in Nice by Pascale Chavepeyer and Enzo Amaddeo [2][4]. The couple, who met in the early 1970s at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgium, named the house after the fifty Nereids — the sea nymphs of Greek mythology — and built it around hand-painted, nature-inspired pieces. Jewellery remains the company's primary craft, with a smaller eau de parfum line extending the same poetic theme.

The house remains active and family-run, now led by the founders' second generation. Pier-Paolo Amaddeo serves as artistic director and Bianca Amaddeo oversees visual identity [8], while the brand reports a presence in nearly 400 multi-brand stores and around 70 boutiques worldwide [2].

⚑ Thinner sourcing. The article relies largely on the brand's own statements (T2–T3). Glowpedia is seeking independent sources.

Pascale Chavepeyer and Enzo Amaddeo met in Belgium during the early 1970s as students at the Beaux-Arts, sharing an interest in nature and environmental causes. They settled on jewellery as their artistic medium and opened the first Les Néréides shop in Nice in 1980, at 12 rue Paradis [2]. The brand's debut fragrance, also called Les Néréides, launched the same year.

The company's name draws on Greek myth: the Nereids were the fifty daughters of the sea god Nereus. The trade body FranceClat notes the brand's reading of the myth, citing the nymphs' "marvellous ability to constantly reinvent themselves" as a guiding idea.

An English subsidiary was founded in 1990 by Nina Amaddeo, one of the founders' four children, who went on to take creative roles across the business. In 2015 Pascale and Enzo Amaddeo created the Les Néréides Loves Animals foundation, channelling a share of seasonal-collection sales to animal-welfare causes [5]. The company describes more than forty years of continuous activity since its 1980 founding [2].

Les Néréides is an independently held French family business; the packet records no parent company or acquisition history. Leadership has passed to the founders' children, with Pier-Paolo Amaddeo in artistic direction and Bianca Amaddeo handling visual identity [8].

While the brand was founded in Nice, its registered headquarters and present-day workshop are in Paris, at 5 rue du Bourg l'Abbé in the 3rd arrondissement, according to FranceClat [8]. The company's own pages continue to cite Nice and the original rue Paradis address as the founding location [2].

The company frames jewellery as something beyond ornament. On its house pages it describes each collection as "an ode to nature, creatures, and the sea," and individual pieces as a "talisman" meant to connect the wearer with memory and emotion. FranceClat records the brand's stated vision as wanting "to give women the greatest emotions in the world" [8], and positions its output as "accessible luxury jewellery."

In a profile for the Khaleej Times, the house characterised its work as "quirky, feminine, at times childlike" with "complete French chic," and described it as "French slow fashion" — handmade and hand-painted pieces using materials such as enamelled brass, fresh-water pearls and faceted stones. The same profile noted a more affordable sister line, N2.

Design begins with hand-painted gouache sketches, and pieces are hand-painted and finished with cut-to-measure stones; the La Diamantine collection uses glass stones faceted individually for each piece. The company says this work is carried out in its Paris workshop using craft techniques drawn from fine-jewellery traditions.

Alongside jewellery, Les Néréides produces an eau de parfum line. Its best-documented scent, Patchouli Antique, is described by fragrance reviewers as a re-edition of the house's first 1980 fragrance [6]. The current range pairs established scents — among them Rue Paradis, Étoile d'Oranger and Baie de Cassis — with newer additions such as Vanille Bleue, Musc Héliodore, Fleurs de Peau, Lune Rousse and Bois de Songes, presented by the brand as an extension of its jewellery collections.

Since 2015 the Les Néréides Loves Animals foundation has dedicated one collection each season to animal welfare, donating 15% of the sale price of those pieces to shelters and protection groups [5]. The foundation says it supports more than 26 organisations across several continents, from France and England to Afghanistan, Thailand, Australia and India.

Figures for the total raised differ between the company's pages. The dedicated foundation page states that more than €700,000 has been raised over the foundation's ten years [5], while the brand's main "La Maison" page gives a figure of over €500,000 [2].