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Bulgari opens Europe's largest jewellery manufacturing site
French luxury group LVMH has made a bold statement in the jewellery sector, by boosting the resources of Italian label Bulgari, which it bought in 2011 for €3.7 billion.The Roman jeweller has in fact recently inaugurated a huge new site, defined in a press release as "the largest jewellery manufacturing facility in Europe."
The 14,000 m2 state-of-the-art facility was completed earlier in the year in Valenza, at the heart of Italy's prime gold and jewellery industry district, in the northern region of Piedmont. Bulgari's two former manufacturing sites in Valenza and nearby Solonghello are now under one and the same roof.
The new facility integrates the entire manufacturing process, from prototyping to the creation of all the label's collections except for high jewellery, which is still crafted in a dedicated workshop in Rome, it too destined to be expanded.
The new Valenza site currently has a staff of 400, but Bulgari announced it will hire another 300-plus employees by 2020, bringing the total at the facility to over 700.
The building was designed by architecture studio Open Project to have as little environmental impact as possible, and is also home to the Bulgari Jewellery Academy, a technical college set up by the Italian label to train young artisan jewellers.
The total investment, according to LVMH, is "in the tens of millions of euro," and some experts have estimated it to be about €35 million.
Bulgari's revenue is currently €2 billion and, thanks to the new facility, the jeweller plans to double its output.
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