Tagliamonte: Ancient Art Upgrades Itself

“We strongly believe the US market and customers in general, have heavily shaped our brand identity through the years. The diversity in the market has been both a safe haven and source of great inspiration for many Tagliamonte designs”. Giada Tagliamonte’s words sound like a tribute to America, and for a great many reasons. With the freshness of her early thirties and an already considerable know-how gained by travelling from the States to the Far East, Giada represents the Tagliamonte family’s fifth generation operating in the jewelry business. The company was founded in Ischia in 1943 as a coral fishing business but then, grandfather decided to move everything to Torre del Greco and focus entirely on another niche market, turning into his profession: in other words, engraving on shell to produce cameos, a world which was still partially unexplored at the time. And he did it by creating his own style. Clearly, however, the Tagliamonte DNA must be programmed to search for constant change because, Giada’s father, Nino, steered production towards working techniques inspired by the Greeks and Romans, even introducing glass paste. «It was my father who embarked on a lengthy research activity among the museums of Herculaneum and New York to study original casts. The next step was finding Venetian artisans able to re-produce those ancient techniques, including engraving on glass paste.» Nowadays, the brand has a branch in the USA while production is in Vicenza, Italy, but the main sellers are still in the States where what now works the most are web retailers specializing in luxury and designer brands, like, for example, The RealReal. «In America people buy lots of tiny collectables that can be personalized with colors and particular subjects. These small to medium items are often bought in series with different colors, like, for example, pendants, earrings and charms.»