Our Story
DANIELA RAVAIOLI AND HER JEWELS
Daniela’s eyes on the world become the filter through which Radà imprints her material assemblages on the retina of taste. With the iron determination to “become famous,” a phrase that little Daniela uttered at just four years old as she entered the kitchen of the large rural house where she lived with her parents, thus initiating her life. “I acted by following Daniela,” she often says. And her following “Daniela” leads her on a creative historical excursus that has lasted for decades, based on flair, research, and technical competence. Yes, because knowing how to create means “mastering the material.” And Daniela has had a close relationship with material since her beginnings in her mother’s large kitchen, from those first pheasant feathers she transformed into earrings to sell the next day to prestigious shops like Parisotto in Bologna. Her original, nonconformist quips, capable of giving a profound decorative meaning to the fashion accessory, were immediately popular. Initially, they were intuitive, and then, over the years, they became founded on a deep study of materials and the ability to foresee the ebb and flow of collective taste.
“My world is always evolving. The search for a new collection begins with raw materials. Experimenting with techniques, researching to propose new color nuances. Then everything evolves into creative ideas that I realize not through drawing, but by hand in an artisanal way, as I have always done from the beginning. Stitched filigrees, painted and set glass then sewn. Rhinestone chains of various sizes that give life to jewelry assembled with needle and thread like items of clothing. Different ideas merge and give life each season to a new world and a new collection. I think that lasting success over time can be summarized in a single phrase: ‘passion for the search for beauty, and perfection in execution’.”
40 years. Of identity never betrayed, of replicated success. With passion, with courage, with the strength to define the New
Daniela Ravaioli, the heart of Radà, built a brand as an extension of her personality. She left a powerful mark in the world of jewelry.
And she created a company capable of enduring decades, preserving a clear identity while reacting to a changing world with an authentic entrepreneurial spirit.
HEADQUARTERS IN FORLÌ
Transformation from a craft workshop to a production facility capable of creating collections at the same pace as fashion;
Ability to internationalize, maintaining the high quality of its products;
Evolution from trade fairs to Business 3.0.
These are the key milestones of its success, to which an important encounter is added: the one with Muriel Grateau, Complice’s designer and inspiring muse of
she taught me to see pearls with new eyes, always contemporary; above all, she conveyed to me the power of foresight according to which objects ignored in the present will become indispensable in the near future.
The Italian company represents a creative unicum that has become an entrepreneurial success. Known in Japan as a fashion house, sold by premium stores around the world (Barneys, Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, L'Eclaireur, Browns, Joyce, 10 Corso Como Seoul, Galeries Lafayette, Isetan, Luisa Via Roma), capable of self-financing its growth by proceeding in steps over the years, the small company from Forlì has created a creative-industrial business model that sees on one side the manual skill of embroiderers/assemblers and on the other the production/commercial schemes typical of a modern company.
I always observed them, noticing the delicate refinement of the Orientals and the flashy ostentation of the Russians, trying to understand how they wore things and with what alchemy they presented them.
Creativity always flows along the same path as business evolution. Radà's journey is fascinating and very much in line with the founder's exuberant and determined nature. She has always had an authentic passion for women and their expressive codes, almost like an anthropological observer.
The early years flew by, through evenings and nights, with hands assembling and delivering items to Bologna's most prestigious boutiques. Initially, Daniela Ravaioli's accessories arose from an intuition, from details such as feathers, fur, and shells, taken from nature and translated into the language of glamour by a curious, keen sensibility capable of being ahead of its time.
In 1982, Daniela Ravaioli founded Radà. But it was only with the first French fair, at the Hippodrome, a few years later, that the small artisan business transformed into BSR and rapidly accelerated its revenue and notoriety. A company with a creative heart combined with a capacity for planning and evolution perfectly in tune with the codes of its artistic DNA.
From the first collection to global expansion
“Research is everything. But also technical skill, knowledge of the subject, is an asset that cannot be ignored.”
Daniela Ravaioli learns the craft of melting metals, assembling them, transforming them. Every Monday in Florence, until Thursday, in the workshop, among the workers with oxyacetylene torches in hand.
She explores glass processing techniques, learns to create vases, to compose stone and paint with gold. The first samples are forged by her own hand.
Meanwhile, consulting gigs arrive for Complice, Genny, Lacroix. Iconic, runway pieces are entrusted to Daniela's hands and creativity. Large boules, minaret earrings, wicker bangles, unique objects whose inspiring substance is still found today scattered in the style offices of international brands.
In the 1980s, the brand incorporated the punk influence with metal pieces sprayed with paint and rubber; then the register changed and was permeated by Jean Paul Gaultier and the New Romantic current: Radà's mink tails ended up in Harper's Bazaar, fur pom-poms became cult, just like the wicker bangles. After the exhibition in Paris, at the Hyppodrome, Radà became BSR and blossomed on the international market. Particularly in Japan, given the endemic passion for pearls experienced in the Radà way: assembled with crystals and chains, disassembled from their classic structure and re-modulated in a modern, unusual, unique way.
Time travel, in the flowing decades of the twentieth century, remains indispensable for Radà's founder. Always with very clear trend ideas, like the determination with which she bought a red ruffled tulle eighteenth-century dress at a London flea market that would become her wedding dress years later.
Then, in 2002, a passion for embroidery took over and the assembly technique changed.
Curiosity is essential; you never stop learning. Once I close one world, I open another. And I always look forward; I don't keep archives of my collections because I'm not used to looking back. This technical innovation accompanies the creative fervor capable of ushering the company into the new millennium, and which Daniela still uses today to create, always seeking to develop new ideas.
Radà is today a globally recognized brand. Creativity has become a business capable of moving through the skill of hands to reach the 3.0 world.
Market leader in Japan, established in the best Italian and international boutiques and multi-brand stores.
The company has evolved its dissemination tools in parallel with technological changes.
A high-caliber press office, a diligent work that has been going on for a couple of years alongside a digital strategist, Instagram and Facebook sponsorships, and an established e-commerce.
For three years, Radà has been operating with the same logic as fashion, creating previews and cruise collections, in line with the consumer's desire for new and fresh items regardless of canonical seasonality.We could define it as an artisanal industry: each piece is handmade, but the concept of the collections follows an industrial program, capable of planned delivery and manufacturing times.
Audacity is part of Radà's genetic code. Along with technical expertise, knowledge of fashion and costume history, observational spirit, and entrepreneurial ability.
Since the first collection, imbued with Byzantine flavor and inspired by Ravenna mosaics, Radà's tendency to break through the barriers of the obvious to mix seemingly antithetical codes has never faded.
