A chat with the founder of: Bon.Vi Gioielli
Last week we had the pleasure to sit down and have a chat with the founder of Bon.Vi Gioielli: Guia Bonvicini.
Bon.Vi Gioielli started off as a jewelry brand in 2017 and is today one of the most iconic small businesses of Milan. So, we decided to ask her a few questions to get to know both her and her brand better.
- How was your brand born?
It actually happened in a very unexpected way. It was the last year of high school, and I was doing the artistic route in high school, and during that last year I started making a few jewelry pieces for myself by watching YouTube videos, so I was completely self-taught. As I started wearing them, my friends would say stuff like “Oh that’s so pretty, could you make me one as well?”. And at a certain point I was like, you know what, I’ll start sharing these things on Instagram, which honestly was not really something that people were doing at the time, considering it was September 2017, so a few years ago. And I thought what’s the worst that could happen, I’ll share my creations on Instagram and we’ll see what people have to say. And that’s basically where everything started. In the first couple of months, I started understanding the dynamics a bit better, like I knew if I managed to send something to an influencer, it would make me ten times more visible. And that’s where it completely grew out of proportion, in the sense that it wasn’t planned, I was just passionate about something and I thought okay, let’s actually do this.
- What was the year or the moment in which your brand grew the most? And why do you think that is?
As I said, it was the last year of high school when everything changed. In my first year of uni, I understood that it could become something serious, so for the whole year I worked on creating the website, opening my VAT number, and all the bureaucratic steps that needed to be taken, and as I was saying, when you’re young, it can be a bit hard to understand how to navigate all this and to get into doing what you want to be doing. But I was actually very lucky because in January of 2020 I already had the website up, the contract with the courier company, and I was overall very prepared. The launch of the website though was a bit tricky because the strength of the brand was the people could personalize their jewelry in the way they liked. So, I added the feature of personalizing the pieces, the necklaces, bracelets, earrings. Lockdown then started in March, but I did have a plan, and I think you could say that was my competitive advantage. I had everything ready to start sending orders and that’s where the boom happened, that’s where people started to know about me way more.
- Which opportunities did Milan give you?
So, I think that the best thing about Milan is its network. I started this by myself, I mean, I didn’t know anyone else besides me who was doing these things, starting a small business, and if I did it was at maximum 2 people. And I think the nice thing was that this sort of network was created, and this is something I care about a lot, making yourself known to others, making friends with many different brands, doing events together, and it’s also a great opportunity for word-to mouth promotion. I think that the nice thing about Milan is that there are many different realities, and everyone is young, with beautiful, fresh ideas. So, I think that the greatest thing in Milan was the creation of this network, of these relationships, which, yes, on one hand are work-related, but on the other they go beyond the business and the brand and they become an actual friendship, and an exchange of thoughts, opinions and ideas.
- How was it navigating the changes in social media these past years?
I have to admit, really interesting. I actually decided to study communication at university due to everything that happened my last year of high school and when I opened my Instagram page. And in the past 5 years I was able to watch it evolve. I think the hard part is that it’s constantly changing, constantly developing. It’s really challenging, and that’s what I like about it. There’s no way that you could think, “okay I’m doing my thing and it’s going well, I’ll just keep on doing in in the same way”, because it doesn’t work like that. And it is true that I have also had my Instagram page for 5 years, but every year, every six months, or less, I try to see what else I could be doing, what else I could add. For example, downloading TikTok, and I have to admit that given that I’m doing this by myself it can get difficult to be on track with everything that’s going on in the social media world.
However, I do also believe that everyone has their own kind of niche. I don’t think every platform works perfectly for everyone. Sharing on all platforms is challenging , but then again, I do still think it’s super interesting how everything is changing. Everything is becoming way more authentic, you can show the real you, and for small businesses this is something that works super well. It’s almost something a bit amateur, showing how everything is made, how I make the pieces, but people like it. Now that I also have my lab, I even get to see people come in, and I get to meet them and build a friendship with every person who follows Bon.Vi on social media. It’s beautiful, and really interesting, how everything’s changed.
- Can you tell us something about Bon.Vi Break?
The creation of Bon.Vi Break was my reaction to wanting to create something different. This is because I understood that you can’t just sell a product anymore, you have to tell a story, you have to let people live a certain experience, so I told myself that I have to create my own space. I thought it would be nice to show myself not only as the girl who makes jewelry, but also to bring people in my world, in my passions, in what I like to do. I know that podcasts are a really big thing now, but I really like the idea of a video, of actually seeing our faces, and obviously seeing the products I make. So, I thought it would be a nice idea to invite, every once in a while, someone, and it can be anyone, but they gotta have something to say, something different, that people, and I firstly, can find interesting. And the result is this super interesting, basically informal, talk that we have, and now I have put it on YouTube as well. It has been doing good on Instagram, the viewers are liking it even though it’s not the usual Instagram video format, given that it's 10 minutes long. But people get to know the real me in this way, and it’s amazing the feedback I get from people telling me what the next episode could be about, what topic we could discuss. So, it’s great how I get to do something different, that’s not only about making jewelry, but about letting people get to know me.
- What goals do you have for Bon.Vi?
I’m guessing this should be the easiest question to answer, but the problem is I have too many. Ideally, I would like to open a 360 brand, I would like for Bon.Vi to become more of a lifestyle brand. The idea is to not only make jewelry, to bring all of myself, all of Guia inside Bon.Vi. I would make more products, and as I said I did take the artistic route in high school, so I did always like drawing, graphic design etc. That’s why I’d like to do a bit of everything, even bring in different people. The goal is to create a brand in which anyone who wants to, anyone who has a passion, can join. And, indeed, to do so through a certain lifestyle, a certain shared value, such as selling something that’s handmade, a product that’s unique and different from the others. So, my objective would be creating and building this kind of network, similar to the one in Milan I was telling you about. But all of this under Bon.Vi, expanding the Bon.Vi universe as much as I can.
We are happy to follow Guia, who shared with us her journey, her exciting plans, the beautiful vision she has for her brand, and we can’t wait to see what the future holds for her and for the constantly evolving Bon.Vi universe.
