Earlier this month, Christie’s promoted Kimberly Miller to global managing director of its luxury operation, a move that comes as the category continues to outpace much of the auction market.
In December, the house reported that in the first half of last year, luxury sales jumped 30 percent, compared to the same period in 2024. The jump came as the house’s overall first-half results remained flat. That momentum carried through the rest of the year. In Geneva in November, the Mellon Blue—a hulking diamond—sold for $25.6 million, making it the most expensive jewel to sell at auction in 2025. The result helped push that week’s sales up 24 percent compared with 2024. Taken together, Christie’s luxury sales reached $795 million in 2025, a 17 percent increase from the prior year. That increase well outpacing its overall growth last year of 7 percent.
Miller steps into the global role after serving as regional managing director for luxury in the Americas, where she oversaw strategy and performance across jewelry, watches, wine, and handbags. During that time, she helped integrate California-based automotive auction house Gooding & Company into Christie’s following its acquisition in 2022, expanding the house’s footprint in high-end collectibles and luxury vehicles. She also led the relaunch of wine auctions in New York, including the sale of billionaire Bill Koch’s cellar, which brought in nearly $30 million and became the most successful single-collection wine sale in North American history.
Jewelry has been another key driver. Christie’s sold nine of the ten most expensive jewels at auction last year, including a sold-out “Magnificent Jewels” sale in Geneva this May that totaled $72 million.
After over 15 years at Christie’s, Miller now oversees the auction house’s global luxury business, collaborating with teams in Geneva, Hong Kong, London, New York, and Paris. ARTnews sat down with Miller to discuss her plans to push the luxury business even further.
The interview has been edited lightly for clarity and concision.
ARTnews: Art sales have softened in recent years, even as luxury categories continue to perform strongly. How does Christie’s see luxury fitting into its broader business model?
Kimberly Miller: Christie’s views luxury as both a stabilizer and a strategic growth engine within our broader business model. It has consistently remained a critical entry point for new client engagement and acquisition. Our categories of jewelry, watches, wine, and handbags have a broader cultural familiarity and span a range of price points, which tend to make them more approachable for first-time buyers. For many, bidding on a bottle of wine or a piece of jewelry feels like a more accessible first step into the auction world than acquiring a higher-value work of art.
As a result, luxury serves as an effective on-ramp into the Christie’s ecosystem, from which clients can migrate into fine and decorative art, among other categories. Luxury also continues to perform strongly relative to other sectors, even though this segment, too, has undergone a recalibration following the 2022 market peak. While macro- and microeconomic factors have driven a broader correction, the category remains meaningfully above 2020 levels and has demonstrated resilience year on year. This consistency helps offset softness in some art segments and contributes to overall revenue stability during cyclical downturns.
Christie’s has said many new and younger clients are entering through luxury. What’s driving that shift?
The shift is twofold. First, luxury is a broad and approachable entry point for many novice collectors. Second, it is a market particularly well suited to a digitally driven environment—a trend that accelerated notably in 2020. When the world went into lockdown during Covid, many novice and younger clients used that time to self-educate in areas of personal interest, with luxury categories proving especially engaging.
At the same time, there was a rapid transformation of the digital ecosystem. Confidence in online purchasing increased, platforms became more intuitive, and as a result, many Gen Z and Millennial collectors now come to Christie’s well informed, valuing digital engagement and speed alongside the access, expertise, and transparency that auctions provide.
Reflecting this shift, the number of online luxury auctions has more than doubled compared with pre-Covid levels and continues to deliver our most consistent sell-through rates. Christie’s has always emphasized education and specialist expertise to build bidder confidence, and we are increasingly supporting self-directed online learning through category-specific collecting guides.
Sustainability is also increasingly important among Gen Z and Millennial collectors and is integral to Christie’s business practices today. We are aligned with leading climate organizations, are SBTi approved with targets to reduce emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050, and are members of the Gallery Climate Coalition. Across luxury, we’ve expanded digital offerings and reduced the printing and distribution of catalogs, while introducing more sustainable packaging for purchased lots.
Are luxury buyers increasingly overlapping with art collectors?
There has historically been strong overlap—it’s fundamentally a community galvanized by a shared passion for quality, authenticity, storytelling, and stewardship. At the highest levels of collecting, that crossover is particularly strong, as these clients are motivated to acquire the best and rarest objects across multiple categories.
At the same time, luxury categories remain highly individualized, with distinct client bases and motivations. That makes it an interesting and challenging problem to solve, so we tailor content, marketing, and experiences to specific audiences rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach. That might mean a moderated panel discussion on independent makers in jewelry and watches one day, a highly curated wine dinner the next, or a private gallery tour for fine art clients. This allows us to foster cross-category engagement where it’s natural, while preserving the integrity of each category.
Sotheby’s has expanded aggressively in the Middle East. How is Christie’s approaching the region?
Christie’s has always taken a very client-centric approach to growth, and that philosophy guides how we think about the Middle East. Rather than building initiatives for their own sake, we focus on meeting collectors where they are and supporting them in ways that feel authentic to the region.
In addition to watch auctions and category sponsorships in Dubai, we opened an office in Saudi Arabia last year, led by Nour Kelani—the first time a major international auction house established a presence in the Kingdom. That move reflects both the depth of engagement we’re seeing and our commitment to serving clients locally. While we’re exploring future programming across auctions and private sales, nothing is ready to be announced.
Christie’s acquisition of Gooding brought cars into the mix. How important is that category?
At just one year post-acquisition, the car category has quickly become a meaningful contributor to Christie’s overall luxury sales and an important growth area. In our first year of car sales as Gooding Christie’s, the department delivered its highest-grossing year since 2003, realizing more than $234 million across four auctions. Looking ahead, we’re excited about expanding Gooding Christie’s into EMEA in 2026.
You led the relaunch of wine auctions in New York. What did that reveal about collector behavior?
Relaunching wine sales underscored how intrinsically wine collecting is tied to community and shared experiences. The Collection of William I. Koch achieved a record-setting $28.8 million and reflected strong demand across regions and price points, with a clear preference for online bidding due to speed and convenience. We’re also seeing continued appetite for experiential lots that pair wine or spirits with access to producers and makers.
As luxury grows, how do you ensure it doesn’t overshadow Christie’s identity as an art institution?
Luxury complements rather than competes with Christie’s identity as an art institution. When we maintain the same level of scholarship, provenance, and connoisseurship across every category, luxury broadens our audience and deepens engagement with Christie’s as a whole.
And finally, how might the news about LMVH’s shares dropping—and the slower than expected recovery of the luxury market—impact Christie’s luxury business?
I would say the likelihood of a material impact on Christie’s Luxury business is medium to low. Auction dynamics differ from the primary market, and while LVMH and Kering are industry bellwethers, their recent results were shaped largely by fashion, leather goods, and exposure to China. By contrast, their Jewelry and Watch segment—more comparable to Christie’s auction categories—was up 8 percent for the quarter. Christie’s Luxury also delivered strong sales and sell-through rates in the second half of the year, with auctions up 17 percent versus FY 2024.
Much of Christie’s Luxury business is driven by the top end of the market, where demand for ultra-rare, high-value objects remains strong. The Marie-Thérèse Pink Diamond, which sold for $14 million in New York this June against a $5–7 million estimate, is a clear example. Provenance, quality, rarity, and aesthetics continue to drive competitive bidding, alongside a strong year for Luxury Private Sales. While growth has moderated since 2022, the market remains above 2020 levels, and despite ongoing economic uncertainty, I remain cautiously optimistic for the year ahead.
