Today I thought I’d take a look at the process that the little charms on our wrists go through to get to our bracelets! I haven’t done a post like this in a while, what with all the Spring and Summer news trickling in, but Pandora just released a pretty fun new video covering the creation of the Vintage Lace charm – from conception in Copenhagen to production in Thailand.
This made me realise that I hadn’t actually done a blog post on how Pandora charms are made – so that’s what I’m doing today. I thought it would be fun to stop and appreciate how much work has gone into the charms we already own! I’ve included the new video in this post, alongside some more information about how the charms are made.
Where and how are Pandora charms made?
While Pandora is a Danish company, the charms and other jewellery pieces are manufactured in Gemopolis, Thailand, where Pandora employ over 5,900 people! Gemopolis is an industrial estate that specialises in high-end products, such as high fashion, jewellery and electronics.
Each charm is hand-finished and reportedly passes through at least 20 hands before it hits the shelves. This involves setting all the gemstones in a charm, soldering pieces together, plus oxidising and polishing the charms – all by hand!
I find this fascinating. Pandora is, admittedly, very popular the world over and the charms are produced in significant quantities. This means that it’s often tempting (or so I find) to think that the charms are entirely made via a conveyor-belt process, and so the craftsmanship behind each charm becomes a little lost. It’s incredible to think that every single Pandora piece, no matter how many of them there are, have gone through that painstaking process.
Charm Variation
This process means that there can be a lot of variation in the finish of the charms, especially in the muranos, which are completely hand-made and not just hand-finished; they can differ in size, pattern and even colour. Personally, I’ve always liked this, as it makes a charm feel a bit more yours and suggests the high level of individual craftsmanship that goes into each piece. However, I do like to go and pick mine out in person, just to make sure that I’m happy with the one I’ve chosen!
Watch it happen!
Pandora just released a set of pretty cool new videos detailing how they create their charms. This first one represents the creation of a Vintage Lace charm. It starts with the design process in Copenhagen, and then takes us through the process of actually creating and finishing the charm!
This second video is amazing, revealing how murano glass charms are made – right down to the beautiful 3D details of the Cherry Blossom murano.
You can also see how enamel details are created in this video – it’s fascinating to see how the enamel is handled in liquid form!
This last video has been around for years, but gives a good overview of the various processes involved.
Touring the factory
While the Pandora factory in Thailand is not open to general visitors, you can read more about the creation of Pandora jewellery in the following two articles. They were written by fashion writers invited specially to see the Pandora factory in Gemopolis.
- In the first, fashion site Hellwafashion also visited the Pandora factory back in 2011 and their report on it is fantastic; check it out for some very cool and very detailed pictures of various aspects of the charm-making process and some little details from behind the scenes.
- In the second, Marie Claire journalist, Kate Harrowsmith visits the factory. Unfortunately, the article appears to have just been taken down as I was writing this post! :( However, a transcript of the article and the pictures that it included are uploaded here on Facebook for you to look at. A transcript of the article is included in the commentary of the first image in the album.
Conclusion
It would be amazing to be able to visit the factory and actually see the jewellery-making process in person but unfortunately you aren’t allowed to tour it! Plus, I’d have to actually get to Thailand first. ;) We’ll have to settle for YouTube for now!
If they are made in Thailand does this mean they are cheaper if we buy them there?
Official Pandora retailers aren’t allowed to ship outside their geographical region :)