Pandora’s Secrets

Pandora is the most popular jewelry brand in the world. Everyone has worn or at least seen a Pandora jewelry up close. In 2022 Pandora sold three jewels per second. Yet not everyone knows the history of this company. For example, did you know that Pandora jewelry, which is a Danish company, is made in Thailand? And that its founder is a maniac of confidentiality, who doesn’t give interviews or even let himself be photographed? So much so that he bought a house in Singapore.

Pandora is the world’s largest jewelery brand with a turnover of DKK 26.5 billion in 2022 (approximately €3.5 billion or US$3.8 billion) and a retail network of approximately 2,500 stores, with 600 million customers on online stores alone, and more than 32,000 employees. But it was born from a simple family business. To be precise, by a couple: the Copenhagen goldsmith Per Algot Enevoldsen and his wife Winnie. After opening a small jewelry store in 1979 in Copenhagen, the two often traveled to Thailand to buy materials and jewelry to import. But, before Pandora became Pandora, the couple focused on wholesale. Indeed, in 1987 the retail was stopped.

After hiring a dozen designers, production was brought entirely to Thailand in 1989, where production costs were, and still are, much lower. The two, Per and Winnie Enevoldsen, moved to live in Bangkok with their son Christian, and were supplying affordable jewelery for the European mass market. The company has grown to include an assortment of rings, necklaces, earrings and watches, but has currently stopped producing them. One of the features of Pandora is also to protect some solutions, such as the metal alloys used, with a patent. The success of the bracelets with charms convinced the couple to focus on direct sales in the 2000s.

The bracelet with charms to compose and customize was the key to success. It was first launched in the Danish market. The couple first came up with the idea of creating a piece of jewelry with interchangeable charms that can be added and removed according to the wearer’s preference. The success convinced Pandora to focus on foreign markets, starting with Germany and the United States, then Australia in 2004. In 2005, the Danish company opened a large-scale artisanal facility in Gemopolis, the jewelery industry area in Bangkok. In 2017 it opened a factory in Lamphun, near Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, and in 2018 another Triple A production site also in Gemopolis.

The Lamphun site is a real citadel. It employs over a thousand employees, almost all very young, who wear a burgundy uniform. Pregnant women add light blue aprons. There is also a spirit house, a small votive altar to the Buddha where employees can recite a prayer in the morning before going to work, but a room dedicated to Muslim prayers has also been provided. Not only. In addition to the canteen, there is a grocery store, a nursery, an infirmary, and even a DJ who creates music for the employees on the console and a digital space where programs are produced. In Thailand Pandora produces the jewels, but they are designed in Italy and Denmark.

Since its foundation almost a quarter of a century ago, Pandora has grown to become listed on the stock exchange, also thanks to the idea of creating a widespread chain of franchised stores. In 2008, the private equity fund Axcel acquired 60% of the company and two years later, in 2010, Pandora was listed on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange. The founders and their son Christian are now based in Singapore, where they have purchased two luxurious apartments in the Orchard area, in a condominium on Boulevard Vue. Facilities include a swimming pool, jacuzzi, spa suite with heated stone bed and sauna.

How to recognize the real Pandora jewels?
As with all successful things, there are those who copy. And there are also those who sell fake Pandora jewels. How to recognize the real Pandora jewels? The company itself explains it: all sterling silver jewelery is stamped with the capital letter S for silver, followed by the declared purity in parts of pure silver per thousand: S925 (92.5% pure silver). Additionally, all Pandora gold jewelry is stamped with a capital G for gold, followed by the purity, expressed in parts of pure gold per thousand in the gold alloy: 14k, G585 (i.e. 58.5% pure gold) or 18k: G750 (75% pure gold). However, the quality marks on Pandora jewelry manufactured before June 2011 only contain numbers, not letters.
The standard trademark on Pandora jewelry is ALE, which stands for Algot Enevoldsen, the father of the brand’s founder, Per Enevoldsen. The letters ALE are stamped on the jewels, except on some of the smaller pieces. However, some countries require other specific stamps for jewelry and Pandora obviously complies with the requirements by adding additional stamps.

Why is it called Pandora?
According to Greek mythology Pandora was the first woman. Zeus, the king of the gods, commissioned Hephaestus (a god of fire) to fashion a woman from the earth, upon whom the gods bestowed their choicest gifts. Pandora thus had a box with all sorts of misery and evil inside. When the jar was opened, out of curiosity to see what was inside, evils flew to Earth, except hope.