With a background in accountancy, it wasn’t easy for Marco Verdi to take over his father’s business, Italian jewellery brand Verdi Gioielli. “My best and most challenging experience was to begin to know and love jewels, and to grow a personal taste in jewellery,” Verdi shares. According to him, the perks amply made up for the challenges. Travelling around the world, seeing new places, and learning about other people’s cultures are just some of them. “It was also nice for me to establish a strong personal relationship with clients who originally wanted only to deal with my father,” he adds.
The third-generation to manage the family business, Marco Verdi decided to create a design department within the company to exchange visions and opinions on a daily basis. “We don’t only offer beautiful jewels, but we also need to ‘tell a story’ about them. And so we have started to make step-by-step moves to go into branding,” he explains. Recently, Verdi adopted all new modern prototyping and modelling techniques, an essential tool to speed up the process of making a jewellery piece. On the brand’s 45th anniversary, Verdi shares how the brand started and how far they’ve gone.
Please tell us how your father, Giuseppe Verdi, founded the family business in Valenza in 1971.
After marrying my mother in 1969, my father took over his father-in-law’s business, which had started back in 1946 under another name. The company name was changed to Verdi Gioielli in 1971. My grandfather, who was a master goldsmith and jeweller, worked for several years in the company as production manager.
From then and now, the brand’s skilfully blended style, elegance, and refinement have set Verdi apart from others. What are the main things that you did to retain them throughout these years?
The first thing we did was to keep the tradition intact. It may seem easy, but it’s very difficult to do. Then, in the ’90s we began to design and produce 100% of our jewels internally. Last but not least, in the last 20 years, we made sure that our creations are strictly all made in Italy.
Please share with us the important elements that make the Verdi pieces distinct Italian.
Quality, refinement, and elegance.
You’ve been one of the pioneers in creating flexible bracelets. To this day, this is still one of your sought-after pieces. How is the trend evolving and please tell us about your latest designs.
In a certain way, we like to think that we sometimes set the trends when it comes to flexible bracelets. Statistics say that the most sold piece of jewellery is always the ring. But I think that in our 45 years in the business, we have succeeded in creating in a woman the desire for bracelets. Our latest collection is made of big pieces of coral and turquoise set in huge diamond bangles, earrings and rings, in a kind of “back to the ’80s” look.
Name at least three inspirations for your designs.
Number one is always nature, with its colours, volumes, shades and beautiful sensations that it conveys. Of course, we always take an attentive look at fashion, catwalks, red carpets, and magazines, since we like to imagine our jewels combined with beautiful and elegant dresses. Third, we take inspirations from vintage jewellery and auction pieces.
How is the brand’s presence in Asia doing so far?
Verdi Gioielli is beginning to be more known in Asia. We have opened a representative office in Singapore, and we have organised events and private meetings in Malaysia, Thailand, and Hong Kong. Since 2014, we have been participating in the September edition of the Hong Kong Show, and as well as in various Fairs in Singapore, including the SIJE in July and JewelFest in October.
Please describe the woman who embodies the Verdi jewellery.
The woman who usually prefers our jewels is a financially independent woman, most of the time a businesswoman, with average age from 35 to 55 years. She is a woman who already owns all the “classic” jewels and wants something unusual and distinctive.
Can you share with us the “stylistic personality” of the Verdi jewellery?
Our jewels can be smaller or bigger, unique pieces for weddings or something to wear everyday. But they never miss the three distinctive Verdi values: excellence, personality, and Italian style.
This year is a big year for Verdi. How are you celebrating it? And please share with us your collection/s to commemorate your 45th anniversary.
We are not celebrating in the “traditional way”, like having parties, doing events, and so on. For us, 45 years do not mean a finishing line, but a new starting point towards the future. Our anniversary collection is a set of gourmette diamond necklace, bracelet, and earrings — a classic design but with a Verdi touch.
