Vicenzaoro Dubai: Middle East jewellery hub welcomes inaugural event

By Jacquie De Almeida

Viviana Sacco grew up watching her father, Gerardo, in his ‘laboratory-workshop’ as he fashioned gold and silver jewellery.

Embracing fabrication techniques from the past, he created his designs in a style rooted in Magna-Grecian culture and the rural tradition of the Mediterranean.

Nearly 50 years later, the workshop is still at the heart of Gerardo Sacco, the Crotone, Italy-based company the goldsmith named after himself, and so is its dedication to handmade designs. Although jewellery can be produced in more cost-effective ways in various parts of the world, Viviana and her brothers—who took over from their father in 2001—are unwilling to compromise.

“We defend our mission until our dying day,” she says from the company’s booth at Vicenzaoro Dubai. “We have some silver products for the Italian market that are less expensive because of the material, but we produce them the same way we do our gold jewellery. This is how we’ve always done it and we won’t compromise. The heart of Italian jewellery manufacturing is the artisan.”