Gaia Repossi, 29, is in the lounge of the Chiltern Firehouse, London, describing her decision to sell a minority share of Repossi, the fine jewellery business founded by her great-grandfather in 1920, to the luxury conglomerate LVMH. Speaking in a whisper, just audible over the plinky piano jazz of the hotel’s sound system and no match for the waitress who has grudgingly accepted her order for green tea and the hotel’s enigmatic snack of “carrot blunts”, she cuts a diminutive figure. Dressed in a wardrobe that rotates Cos, Céline, Louis Vuitton and Loewe, with razor-sharp cheekbones and a particularly European type of raw, hollow-eyed beauty, she’s an arresting if subtle presence. It’s a compelling package: she’s built a career on the quiet statement that reverberates loudly.