Sara Joias Takes Over Hermès's Former Ipanema Townhouse

The Brazilian jeweller Sara Joias has taken over the corner townhouse at the junction of Rua Garcia d'Ávila and Rua Redentor in Ipanema, the address the French luxury house Hermès occupied for roughly a decade. Renovation work has already begun. The new store is scheduled to open in early 2027 — the year Sara Joias marks its 50th anniversary.

The move is a rare instance of a domestic brand stepping into a flagship position that a European luxury house built and then vacated. Hermès consolidated the corner as a luxury reference point in Rio de Janeiro's Zona Sul. In August 2026, the French label moved its operations to an enlarged store at VillageMall, a shopping centre in Barra da Tijuca, ending its run on the Ipanema corner.

Sara Joias, owned by the businessmen Laja and David Zylberman, will fit out roughly 200 square metres across two floors. The company already runs another unit on the same street, Rua Garcia d'Ávila, at number 129 — a block-level presence that will double once the townhouse opens.

How will the store be organised?

According to the magazine Veja Rio, the internal layout will be divided by speciality rather than by brand hierarchy. The plan, as reported:

• Ground floor: exclusively Sara Joias jewellery collections — rings, earrings, bracelets, necklaces and precious stones.
• Second floor: high watchmaking, operating as a multi-brand section carrying luxury watch models.

The split gives the jeweller a dedicated stage for its own collections on the entry level while conceding the upper floor to outside maisons — a structure that reads as a bet on foot traffic from watch buyers who may not have come for Brazilian jewellery at all.

What does this change for Ipanema's luxury strip?

For the Zona Sul retail corridor, it keeps a prestige corner in domestic hands rather than leaving it to another foreign tenant. Hermès's decade at the address anchored the neighbourhood's luxury credentials; its relocation to VillageMall shifted part of that weight westward, toward the Barra da Tijuca mall circuit. Sara Joias's arrival slows that drift, at least at one address.

What the announcement does not say is equally telling. Neither the investment figure nor the renovation timeline beyond "early 2027" appears in the reporting, and no architect or designer has been named for the interiors. The 50th-anniversary framing suggests the company wants the opening and the milestone to land together — a promise that leaves little schedule slack if construction slips.

The multi-brand watch floor also raises an unspoken question: which maisons will actually stock there. Until names appear, the second level is an intention, not a roster.

If the schedule holds, the corner of Garcia d'Ávila and Redentor will trade a single French luxury tenant for a Brazilian jeweller's most ambitious storefront to date — timed to the month, the company hopes, with its half-century.