Catching Up With Pandora’s Creative Directors as They Dial Into Personalization and Community
NEW YORK — Pandora’s senior vice president and creative director duo Francesco Terzo and A. Filippo Ficarelli are focusing on micro communities in key, influential cities to continue to drive excitement for the brand in this post-pandemic moment.
The designers, who split their time between Milan and Pandora’s home city of Copenhagen, were in New York City at the start of fashion week, where they hosted a dinner with actor and skateboarder Evan Mock.
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Partnerships like the one with Mock speak to Terzo and Ficarelli’s new strategy for reaching engaged, fashion-forward consumers. While Pandora is among the world’s largest jewelry brands, the designers hope to maintain an air of community in the work that they do.
“We translate the idea of big business into an amplification of work with our communities. The more cultural relevancy we can express, the more we believe that people will be engaged with us or come into contact with us or discover us,” Terzo said.
“Authenticity is something we can share with people. Evan is an example of that message, of bringing a community into our universe and then they can see you and how you can have a product engraved or personalized. It becomes yours. These are the tools we want to offer. An experience around modality is our point of view when it comes to jewelry,” Ficarelli added.
This pursuit of community is taking Terzo and Ficarelli on a world tour, post-COVID-19 lockdown. Prior to spending a week in New York, where they visited everything from downtown vintage stores to key malls in Queens, they had been in Thailand visiting Pandora’s production facilities. Next up, the designers were scheduled to see Mexico City, as the brand looks to capture more market share in Latin America.
“We want to visit different parts of our community and be inspired. We are going to Latin America, which is very interesting. Mexico City is becoming an exciting space for us and they have new growth and a strong cultural point-of-view. We are planning to embrace art and music and culture there. We want to go experience it in person [to develop a deeper understanding],” Ficarelli said.
Terzo and Ficarelli are mindful of Pandora’s status as one of the world’s largest jewelry brands. “There is a sense of power but also a thought about how will we manage it? It’s about having a point of view and using our power to inspire people and this is the reflection we had during the pandemic that we are ready to share with a larger audience,” Ficarelli said.
In an effort to ensure that its offering does not feel too mass market or boring, the designers are focusing on personalization as a means to capture consumers from different communities in countries across the globe. Pandora is in the process of installing engraving machines in each of its key stores across the world.
“We are trying to inspire people by giving them their own personal touch. Expression in jewelry is fundamental. So I think that the styling approach we have, the idea that everything can be personalized, gives the opportunity to reach a wide range of people, ages and communities,” Ficarelli said.
While the designers declined to reveal specific plans for any new collections this year, they said that customization will be an important component of a new collection involving lab-grown diamonds. Capturing a new generation, Terzo and Ficarelli are also focusing on gender-neutral collections for the future. This was first seen in their revamped version of the Pandora Me collection, released in 2020.
“After the pandemic, you have to be the brand people want to be a part of,” Terzo said.
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