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Eddie Borgo is back. After a six-year stint in Los Angeles, the jewellery designer returned to his New York home in May to relaunch the brand he founded in 2008 and put on pause in 2017, after what Borgo describes as a “rough patch” for the business.
He was juggling many responsibilities, from newer and faster categories to moonlighting for other brands, all while navigating department store markdowns and upheaval. “As an American, I wasn’t taught certain things that would’ve aided me in starting my own company, specifically around finance and forecasting and budgets, and all of those things that as a creative, you’re not really focused on,” Borgo says. “Through all of the years, I had to learn those things — whether I wanted to or not.”
The designer returned in 2023 under the name Edward Borgo, with a line of fine jewellery he developed slowly over five years. Now, Eddie is back, and so is the costume jewellery Borgo is known and loved for. He retains full ownership of the company as founder, creative director and CEO.
“It feels like it’s the correct place for me and for the company,” Borgo says of his New York homecoming. “I’ve continued over the years that I’ve not been here to utilise my original staff as consultants from afar. So now that a lot of them are here, back in the studio, it just feels wonderful and as it should be.” He’s swapped his original Elizabeth Street studio for Tribeca, though still runs into the same people, he tells me.
The decision to relaunch was borne from Borgo’s fine jewellery Paris showroom. “It was very interesting, the reaction,” the designer says. “People loved the fine, but the subject of the costume jewellery kept coming up from the editors and buyers that were visiting us in Paris. I had this moment where I realised I really needed to try again with the fashion jewellery, which had this place in the market that was larger than I was. So I came back to Los Angeles and started sketching a collection of fashion jewellery.”
He sold this collection — with little fanfare and external communications — last season in Paris. It was a hit, Borgo says, with retailers including Bergdorf Goodman, Printemps and Harrods picking up the releases, as they had during the brand’s first reign. “It gave me such great confidence in that side of the business,” Borgo says, adding that he felt there was still white space for his type of work. The brand currently has 40 stockists. Borgo’s sculptural designs are inspired by New York architecture and the art therein (he spends many hours at Bryant Park’s Picture Collection when in need of inspiration). The pieces are geometric, whether in the form of a bracelet made up of colourful cubes, or rings comprising smaller versions of varying widths. “We’re still able to own what it is that we create,” Borgo says.
Now, the Eddie Borgo brand will consist of three collections: the core collection; seasonal fashion collections; and fine jewellery, which will now fall under the Eddie umbrella. Prices for fashion jewellery will range from $100 to to $1,000, with most pieces falling in the $300 to $500 range; and prices for the fine jewellery span $2,000 all the way up to $52,900. The fashion jewellery prices are only marginally higher than they were before, says Borgo, who was keen to keep the price point competitive and comparable to his original range. Borgo will show the new fashion collection in Paris this week, marking the brand’s official relaunch.
Though some of the pieces will look familiar (the core collection features styles that were launched up to 10 years ago), the brand itself is refreshed. Borgo worked with Doug Lloyd, founder and creative director of creative agency Lloyd&Co, to revamp the brand’s site, logo, packaging and wider brand DNA. “In retrospect, I’d fallen out of love with my own brand a little bit,” Borgo says. “It was Doug who really showed me the way back. I really took a long time with him to work through why I had started the costume jewellery brand in the first place.”
Now, he’s returning to the fold better equipped than he was some 16 years ago. “I come to the table with a new stack of experiences under my belt — some good, some bad, lots of mistakes and learning curves along the way,” he says. “But I’m able to really understand what it is that we’re doing; why we’re doing it; and what our strategies are, how our budgets look and how they colour our decisions.”
A slower approach
Borgo may not be living in LA anymore, but his time in the city informed his approach to Eddie Borgo 2.0. First and foremost, LA offered the designer the chance to slow down. Having moonlighted for other businesses, he had the working capital to funnel into fine jewellery, and took the time to do so. “It was really important to me that that process did not feel rushed and that I had moments of contemplation in between high moments of creative output,” he says. “I wanted to push myself to work in a different way than I do with the fashion jewellery, or what I call the costume jewellery. LA really allowed me that — I’ll forever be indebted to the city in that way.”
While during the brand’s early days, Borgo went full steam ahead, he now understands that he holds the reins, and doesn’t need to cede to the wishes and whims of external players like retailers. When it comes to design, the renewed Eddie Borgo will be more flexible in its offering. The fashion collections are malleable: “We can do something one season and then we can try out something new, another season.” (This room for play will be propped up by the core collection, which will remain consistent season after season.)
This driver’s seat mentality is even more significant for the brand’s wholesale approach. “When I was younger, I allowed the retailers at some points to dictate the way we moved forward. That simply is not going to happen this time,” Borgo says.
He’ll also be more selective about the retailers he partners with. As a younger founder, Borgo jumped at every opportunity that approached him. “I would rather take the time with a new retail partner — get to know them, understand who their customer is, make sure our brand is the right brand to incorporate into their matrix before we just create an order of jewellery and ship it to them,” he says.
The priority? Making sure the retailer’s target audience is its actual customer. “I think that who you would like your customer to be sometimes can be very different from who your customer actually is,” Borgo says, adding that he wishes those he’s worked previously would have better established who their consumer is. He attributes the current retail upheaval — in part — to this disconnect.
This is also partly why Borgo plans to open his own store in 2026. (He’s shooting for the West Village.) He also hopes to better immerse the consumer in the Eddie Borgo world in this way, much like he does for the editors and buyers who visit his Paris showroom. “It’s always disappointing when we leave Paris to disassemble everything and take it all down and put everything in storage and give away the flowers,” he says.
Now, Borgo will bring this attention to detail to his own retail space, illustrating to consumers what the brand is offering — and why it’s worth their dollars. “During Covid, a lot of people did move to online, but there’s something so wonderful and tactile about being able to go and look at craftsmanship; look at the way that something’s been made and pick things up and hold them and test their weight and look at the finishing work,” he says. “That tactile experience in a salon setting — certainly for jewellery — is so personal, so specific.”
Borgo understands well that he is re-entering a very different retail environment to the one he left in 2017 — even to the one he launched his fine jewellery in two years ago. For this, he’s prepared, by way of careful diversification. “This idea of being in a silo and relying on one revenue stream — aka wholesale retail — I just don’t think is the most responsible way to operate a business right now,” Borgo says. “If a major retailer wants us to overdeliver, the answer is no. We’re not delivering to meet your open to buy. We’re delivering to meet the demands of our client within your retail environment. Those types of decision-making processes are really colouring the way that we’re moving forward.”
He’s not rushing forward anymore. Where his past diversification efforts resulted in overwhelm and overextension, Borgo is making sure to take his learnings from LA — about slowing down and taking time — to his New York relaunch. “Creative output and business output can be quite exhausting,” he says. “It’s important that in between those moments, you’re having moments of clarity and relaxation and you’re able to recharge. I really want what we’re doing this time around to feel thoughtful and considered.”
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