Largest jewellery manufacturer in the world: Bulgari opens new site in Valenza

Largest jewellery manufacturer in the world: Bulgari opens new site in Valenza

Bulgari is asserting its position as a powerful luxury brand. The jewellery label from Rome has opened a new factory in Valenza. This is intended to double production capacity and also promote young talent in the jewellery industry.

Left: New Bulgari factory in Valenza. © Bulgari

All the expertise under one roof

Record after record. The Roman jewellery label Bulgari is part of LVMH, the industry leader in the luxury sector. Owner Bernard Arnault is consistently ranked as the world's richest person and Bulgari opened the largest jewellery factory in Europe in Valenza eight years ago - now it is also the largest jewellery factory in the world.

Bulgari originally had two manufactories in the Piedmont region, but they were too far apart and were eventually bought up by suppliers. The new Giga Manufacture is therefore also a step towards uniting all of Bulgari's expertise under one roof.

The new 33,000 square metre site - also in Valenza, the heart of Italian jewellery production - was officially opened on 16 April and is set to create 500 new jobs by 2029. This should double production capacity. In 2017, 370 goldsmiths and watchmakers worked at Bulgari; the new opening will increase this number to 1,100 employees. 

Vogue Business quotes Jean-Christophe Babin, the current CEO of Bulgari: "We realised in 2020/21 that our capacities were not sufficient, demand was high."

New training centre: Scuola Bulgari

The largest jewellery manufactory in Europe was inaugurated by Bulgari in 2017, then with 14,000 square metres, but plans to expand by two additional buildings had already been in place since 2020. A conversion plan was submitted in 2022. 

The training of the next generation is also taken care of. Even before the renovation, the site was home to the Bulgari Academy, where employees can learn the highly specialised techniques of the Maison.

Scuola Bulgari, a new training centre focusing on jewellery, will also open at the site from September. Scuola Bulgari offers space for 80 students each year, and anyone aged 18 or over can apply. Securing and promoting young talent in the jewellery industry is essential.

Jean-Christophe Babin told Vogue Business: "Training is essential because Valenza is Italy's largest jewellery-making region, but there are only 6,000 goldsmiths in the area and Bulgari already employs 1,100 of them. The CEO explains that around 1,000 jewellery artists work indirectly for Bulgari, as they are employed by the luxury label's suppliers. Hiring new staff would mean poaching the qualified personnel directly from the company's own suppliers. Recruiting talent from elsewhere or training it itself is therefore the better solution for the company.

Since it was founded in 2017, the Bulgari Academy has already produced 700 goldsmiths and has therefore considerably strengthened the ranks of skilful craftspeople. "We have grown from 370 to 1,000 by attracting talent from Italy, Europe and Africa. 30 nationalities are already represented here," explains Jean-Christophe Babin.

Flexibility through a professional network

The new site will not only increase capacity, but will also bring more expertise in-house to Bulgari - but the brand will not do without the supplier network that Bulgari maintains in the region.

"We would be crazy if we were to integrate everything," Babin told Vogue Business, "We would lose all our flexibility, either downwards or upwards, because we are still in an uncertain world. We may see spikes - as we've seen post-Covid - where we need to boost volume and that would be very complicated. And there can be periods of slowdown."

The so-called "everyday jewellery" is produced at the Valenza site, the CEO explained to FashionNetwork. This is jewellery made from precious metals, diamonds and gemstones, which ranges in price from 2,000 to 90,000 euros. Bulgari's haute joaillerie jewellery, which is above this price range, is produced in Rome.

Bulgari has seen enormous growth in the last five years. According to an estimate by Morgan Stanley, turnover rose from 2 billion in 2020 to 3.47 billion in 2024, with the luxury label's jewellery division accounting for around 80 per cent of turnover in 2024.

Sources: Vogue Business, FashionNetwork