Springy gold amazes the competition

Dusseldorf Material experts, heads of specialist institutes, university professors: everyone shook their heads. Nobody thought that what Georg Wellendorff was up to was possible. The co-owner of the luxury jewelry company of the same name wanted to make a bracelet without the usual clasp. “The main drive for me was my wife,” says Wellendorff. “For 17 years she has finally wanted a clasp that she can easily put on herself” – a bracelet without the lock that is common with high-quality gold jewelry.

Now, 17 years later, he has succeeded. The 53-year-old master goldsmith has developed a new material. He calls it “feathery gold”. And this innovation is an opportunity for the family company from Pforzheim to distinguish itself from the international luxury watch and jewelry groups.

Because it can offer customers something that no competitor has in its range: The elaborately worked gold is so elastic that the bracelet can easily be wrapped around the arm like a noble spiral. At the same time, it stays there without the need for an additional lock. The example shows that new technologies in the jewelry industry do not have to come from international luxury giants such as LVMH or Kering. On the contrary: The medium-sized company manages to bring a new technology onto the market with an unwavering will, decades of experience and financial independence.

Especially since the big luxury houses are also struggling with real innovations. “Emotions, design, marketing and brand image play a much bigger role than technical innovations,” says Sebastian Boger, luxury expert at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). “That is why the proportion of investments in real innovations in the jewelry industry is significantly lower than in other industries,” says Boger.

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He himself cannot say how much Wellendorff has invested in the new technology. “Such innovations only succeed if you don’t keep looking at the costs,” says the managing director. And that’s what the Swabian family entrepreneur speaks of, who can afford years of research.

Economically managed and solidly financed

Because like his brother Christoph, with whom he shares the management, he has always managed economically and financed everything solidly. The two brothers learned that from their father Hans-Peter and their mother Eva. They have modernized the company founded in 1893, which once supplied noble houses and wealthy citizens, since the 1970s. They invested in computer-controlled machines, but did not forego the manual work that is still important today.

The parents are still advising their two sons. They have been running the company since 1999 and are a well-coordinated team: Christoph is responsible for sales on the management board and Georg for production.

Above all, Georg Wellendorff has an unwavering belief in being able to implement new ideas. “I deal with innovations an average of two days a week,” he reveals. Much of what he thinks up, however, never ends up in one of the twelve boutiques that Wellendorff operates primarily in Germany. “In the end, we only bring about one out of 20 ideas into our stores,” he admits. The pieces of jewelry that have made it include the so-called gold cord, which is spun from dozens of gold threads, or the ring, which consists of two rotating parts, or now the springy gold. The family has patented all three developments.

Belief in his ideas is recognized by experts. “I told the Wellendorff family at the time that resilient gold could not be produced,” says Carlo Burkhardt, director of the Institute for Strategic Technology and Precious Metals at Pforzheim University. “But she was not deterred by that.”

Only three and a half years ago, after many other attempts, an employee came to Georg Wellendorff with a new, promising idea. He then pursued this with a small team of chief designers, semi-finished products specialists and the chief designer. His tip for other medium-sized companies: “Find the best specialists. This is the only way we can achieve excellence and set ourselves apart from the mainstream in the market. “

“Hug me” from 10,000 euros

The first prototype was available a good year ago. Now the new bracelet, which is called “Hug me” in the typically romantic Wellendorff language, is being sold in the boutiques. It has its price, from 10,000 euros upwards, depending on how many diamonds it is set.

How he and his team managed to make the gold so elastic remains the trade secret of the master goldsmith. He only reveals this much: “We have combined hardness, pressure and a special thermal process.” Demand is great, he reports after the first few weeks. He is expecting “sales to rise again this year, also because of our innovation”. Even in the past corona year, the jewelry company had “a good year with good results,” as he assures. However, he does not give any figures for his 128-year-old company with 160 employees.

In any case, the prospects for high-quality jewelry brands are good after the weakness caused by the corona crisis. McKinsey expects sales in the industry to grow again by ten to 15 percent by 2025. According to the consultants, the share of branded jewelry in particular is likely to continue to rise. Wellendorff is one of them. The senior of the family recognized early on that it was important to build up Wellendorff as a jewelry brand. The company managed to establish itself alongside the Scheufele family, who took over the Chopard brand from Geneva many years ago, as a German company in the upscale jewelry market – even though many jewelers at the time considered the brand strategy to be hopeless.

The father apparently successfully transferred his unwavering belief in his own path to his sons Christoph and Georg.

More: Revolution at Swarovski – the family gives up leadership

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