We came across Ermani Bulatti jewellery for the first time about a year ago when we opened our first vintage Curiosa shop. Brooches immediately drew attention to their unusual and attractive design. Look at these magical ornaments!
We started looking for information about this company, but it was not so easy. There is so much on the Internet about this company, but time or a country are unclear... Who should we believe? It was impossible to find valid information.
Most, of course, wrote that the company is Dutch, so we decided to look there.
We found two names of designers who once worked in the company. I contacted one whose name is Maurice Tiggeler. He responded very quickly, gladly answered all the questions, sent photos by e-mail, and after a while he offered to meet him and his father Herman Tiggeler, owner and designer of Ermani Bulatti from the very beginning. He asked me if I wanted to interview him and dad! Did I?!
Well, just imagine how happy we were! Finally, a lot about this company, the style of which we adore, would become clear.
Naturally, I was prepared: all together we came up with questions for the interview, printed photos for autographs, I charged the phone to full and started my trip. In order to respect privacy, I will not exhibit a photo of the house where Maurice lives, but I will say that it was written in large letters "Tiggeler Family".
"I'm here," I said.
A very tall man opened the door, it was Maurice, and then an even taller senior man, Herman, gave his hand. "What huge hands, I thought. "He's a jeweller!"
Herman Tiggeler (78) and his son Maurice Tiggeler (52) are founders and designers of Ermani Bulatti brand.
Photo taken in April 2019.
So…
Company:
The name of the company is Accessa BV. The company has existed under a different name since 1966 and produced cheaper jewellery for the Dutch market.
In 1984, the company changed its style and opened a brand which name we already know - Ermani Bulatti. The company closed its doors in 2012 due to economic crisis in Europe.
The company had about 15 people. Among them were designers, soldering ironers, jewellers, managers, the head of the company. They worked at the factory and at home.
The name of the brand:
In the 1980s, Italian fashion and designers were very popular. All that sounded more or less Italian was "wow." Therefore, they decided to choose an Italian name for their brand. The name Hermani comes from the name of the owner - Herman. But they had to change the surname. The name of the designer who worked at the time was van den Berk. Berk means "birch" in Dutch, in French "birch" is Bouleau. They did not know the word in Italian, so Bouleau turned into Bulatti. So the designer Ermani Bulatti was born.
Success came very quickly. Half of the jewellry was sold in Holland, the rest around the world: England, Ireland, America, Germany, etc. Especially England loved this brand.
Designers:
The designers of Bulatti from the very beginning were Herman Tiggeler together with Henk van den Berk, then it was Mark Krijger and since 2000 Paulien Nooter and Maurice Tiggeler had been the designers.
Jewellery:
Bulatti became famous due to fabulous brooches, large unusual belts, which were popular in the 1980s and, of course, clips. Clips were trendy as they did not hurt the ears. Shops allowed to return the purchase if it turned out that the client was not comfortable. But no one ever did.
All jewels were made by hand, with careful study of all small details. When buying, a client got a certificate and a guarantee for a year in the form of a small card:
Here are some more photos of jewellery by Ermani Bulatti.
Materials used:
The materials used in production had changed over time. The main metal was bronze and tompak. The pride of Bulatti was silver oxidation technique. The base metal (nickel, tompak since 2001) was lowered into a silver bath to form a thick layer of silver. Then silver was oxidized and polished. The result was the effect of old silver, characteristic of the jewellery of this company. For jewels to be of old brass color, the company oxidized red brass. This is how this process is presented in the company brochure.
Other materials used were brought from all over the world: mother of pearl, river pearls, multi-colored pearls by Swarovski, as well as numerous rhinestones-crystals, natural bone, brass, copper, glass, silk, wood, semi-precious stones and even aluminum.
They also used plastic for some models, this was due to the fact that plastic is light and does not stretch clothes. However, this did not affect the design itself, and the brooches looked just as attractive!
Collections:
Two collections per year were produced. Any new collection repeated the most popular jewellery of the previous collections and offered new designs. In general, the collection consisted of about 160 models of jewels, each of which was executed in the color of old silver or bronze. There was also many colors of pearls and Swarovski crystals. Some jewels were made with pearls and crystals of any colors upon order.
The circulation of the most popular copies did not exceed a thousand pieces. But the majority did not reach such circulation. So, Ermani Bulatti jewels are rare nowadays!
Ermani Bulatti is an expensive campany. Jewellery was sold in the best boutiques of the world at the appropriate price. Now it is difficult to buy Bulatti and prices can be two or three times higher than they were originally. This can be explained by the remaining high demand for these ornaments and the rarity of their presence on the market.
Unfortunately, Maurice and his father could not find the catalogues of the 1980s. There may be information somewhere on the old computer, but it hasn't been found yet. I was given a few not very old catalogs of the late 1990s, early 2000s. But they found huge photos which were used for exhibitions in the 1980th. They were inserted into a board with illumination.
Here is the very first advertising poster!
Here are other ones of the same time:
The concept of the company
Perhaps the most important thing I caught from the story of the father and the son is that the company had a very important concept. It consists, first of all, in careful attitude to all employees of the company. I was shown a self-made book, which was released at the end of each year, it tells us about how the year passed, what ups and downs they had, but most importantly, it was a place for every employee of the company: be sure to praise and tell about the highlights of the year of this person.
The second important part of this concept is that the whole or almost whole collections of jewels were sold to shops or importers. It was impossible to order only one jewel because it was the most popular, for example. The owners of the company believed that each piece of the collection complements each other, so they look better together, and should be displayed together in stores.
Another important rule of the company is the attitude to a client. Any client is a king in the broadest sense of the word! The acquired jewellery was repaired, cleaned, covered with a new varnish if (which often happened) perfume or toilet water spoiled the coating, from which the metal darkened. After the closure of the company the service continued for another year. Then it stopped because of the elimination of materials and accessories.
Thus, Ermani Bulatti is not just about jewellery making, but also about respect for people, their work, for each client and the jewellery itself!
Herman`s favorite brooch:
This is Maurisa (in silver color):
In this article, I tried to convey various interesting facts about the company itself, heard from a reliable source - the former owners of the Ermani Bulatti company.
Finally, our selfie: I have the heaviest jewellery by Bulatti, which because of the weight can be worn only for a short period, and here are also the signature of the father and the son in the photo of some jewellery in our personal collection.
I hope that some questions, concerning this amazing company, have become clear. If you are interested in this article or you would like to know something else about the company or jewellery, comment below, I will try to clarify with the owners of the company.
P.S. Please do not copy or publish personal photos presented in this article to respect the owners of the company and me. Information from the text can be used with the reference to it. All rights reserved ©