Fullord Geneva: Sandrine Thibaud on Building a Jewellery House Around a Woman’s Independence

“Why should a woman have to ask someone to help her close a bracelet?”

Sandrine Thibaud asked herself that question and found no good reason, so she changed the bracelet. Fullord Geneva, the jewellery house she founded in 2019, has developed a closure a woman opens and fastens with her own hands, whenever she wants and wherever she is. The question sounds small, and it leads straight into the way Thibaud has built her house over seven years: a manufacture of her own in Vicenza, young goldsmiths trained at its benches, and collections that let every woman decide how she wants to be seen. Speaking with The Silent Luxury in September 2026, Thibaud talked about independence as the thread that runs through all of it, from the woman who wears the piece to the house that is earning its name.

Jewellery That Leaves Every Woman Free to Choose

Sandrine Thibaud gives the last word to the woman. Fullord Geneva shows Ghost, Eden, Masai and Rainbow Hues side by side, and each woman picks the piece that says what she wants to say, in the way she wants to say it.

“A Fullord piece has something to say, and it leaves the woman the freedom to decide how she wants to say it,” Thibaud said. “Many houses present one collection at a time. I am speaking to different women, and each of them needs a piece that speaks to her.”

Ghost, the house’s signature, grew out of Thibaud’s own life. A circle sits inside a square, two shapes that ought to pull against each other and instead find their balance, and Thibaud sees women in exactly that tension: strong and soft at once, confident and vulnerable, always more than one thing. “You feel that tension the first time you see the piece, before you know the story behind it,” she said. “And then you make it your own.”

Even the names leave room for the woman who wears them. Many come from Africa, where Thibaud grew up, and she chose them for the stories they carry. “Those names have a soul,” she said. “The woman who wears the piece may connect with that story, or she may give it one of her own.”

A Clasp She Closes With Her Own Hands

Most women know the small helplessness of a clasp that needs a second pair of hands. Sandrine Thibaud decided her clients should be free of it. Fullord Geneva questioned a mechanism that had stayed the same for years and developed a bracelet closure a woman opens and fastens entirely on her own.

“Sometimes innovation means inventing something new,” Thibaud said. “Sometimes it means questioning something that has existed for years simply because nobody thought to change it. Why should a woman need someone to help her with her own jewellery? We questioned that, and now she can open and close it herself. She is completely free in how she wears it.”

The woman who wears the bracelet never has to think about any of this, and that is exactly how Thibaud wants it. “If a piece feels intuitive, comfortable and effortless,” she said, “the innovation has done its job.”

Why She Took Control of Production

Sandrine Thibaud could rethink a clasp because she decides what happens at the workbench. Fullord Geneva designs in Geneva and makes its jewellery in its own manufacture in Vicenza, the capital of Italian goldsmithing, and Thibaud chose that independence with open eyes. She had spent decades as an entrepreneur in the yacht supply industry, and one lesson travelled with her into jewellery.

“Never depend entirely on your suppliers,” Thibaud said. “For an independent house, that dependence touches everything, from quality and delivery times to your freedom to develop and innovate. With our own manufacture, we follow every piece from the first drawing to the client, and we decide responsibly how and where our jewellery is made.”

She knows what that freedom asks of her. “It brings as much responsibility as freedom,” Thibaud said. “You stop asking a supplier to deliver your vision. You carry the people, the processes and the standards yourself.”

The Scarcity of Skilled Hands

Inside the manufacture in Vicenza, the most precious knowledge lives in people. Fullord Geneva’s head of production has spent more than 30 years in the field, and he’s hiring young people to be trained at his side to learn everything he knows. Skilled hands are scarce across European jewellery, and Thibaud trains her own.

“That knowledge is precious, and passing it on matters just as much,” Thibaud said. “It moves from one person to another, and that takes time, passion and commitment. We train our juniors to become the seniors of tomorrow, and we need both.”

Her favourite part is watching them grow into it. “Young women learn directly from that experience, build their own skills and become proud of what they create,” she said. “In a small manufacture, every single person matters. Some of the people we train move on one day, and that is part of it too.”

Building Legitimacy Piece by Piece

Fullord began with a silk scarf blowing across the deck of a yacht. Sandrine Thibaud wanted a jewel to hold it, found none that met her standards and designed one herself: a necklace that doubles as a scarf ring. The house took its name from foulard and or, scarf and gold. Seven years later, Fullord Geneva has its own manufacture, its own signature and a place in around twenty selected stores from Saint-Tropez to Saint-Barth, and Thibaud has learned that a young house earns its legitimacy one piece at a time.

“We started from a blank page,” Thibaud said. “At first I thought mostly about the jewellery, the collections and the identity. What I did not fully anticipate was how much you also build the legitimacy of the house, piece by piece, through the consistency of the work and through the people who believe in the same picture.”

Clients notice the design first, and Thibaud hears it again and again. “These are statement pieces, shapes people are not used to seeing,” she said. “Sometimes it feels as if the house were fifty years old, and it is seven.”

The work has started to travel well beyond those stores. In the fourth season of Netflix’s The Diplomat, released on October 15, 2026, three of the series’ women wear Fullord Geneva jewellery. Kate Wyler, played by Keri Russell, wears the Ariane earrings in yellow gold at a G7 reception in Italy in the eighth episode, and the same earrings appear on the season’s official poster. President Grace Penn, played by Allison Janney, wears a Ghost design in white gold, and Eidra Park, played by Ali Ahn, wears the Enkai earrings in rose gold. A drama about women who hold power and negotiate it on their own terms is told in part through the pieces of a young, independent house in Geneva.

Luxury Has to Listen Again

Sandrine Thibaud wants luxury to start listening again. She sees an industry that makes its clients more complicated than they are, and women who still love jewellery and want a new kind of relationship with the houses behind it. Fullord Geneva hears that wish in the response to its boldest pieces.

“There are different generations, different budgets and different expectations, and people still want to buy jewellery,” Thibaud said. “What is changing is the relationship they want with it and with the brands behind it. We need to listen again. Women want to feel that a brand understands them, instead of being told what luxury should be.”

The boldest shapes get the warmest response, from Eden to the latest Ghost pieces Fullord presented in Vicenza. “There is a real appetite for originality, for shapes that surprise and hold your attention,” Thibaud said. “Being young gives us that freedom. We experiment, we react and we surprise, and what makes being young hard becomes one of our strengths.”

Only Time Creates Heritage

Sandrine Thibaud shapes almost everything at Fullord Geneva herself, and time is the one thing she has to let run its course. She sees time, responsibility and consciousness moving luxury forward together, and only time will show whether a young house has made jewellery that lasts across generations.

“If you build a house for the long term, the three have to move together, each at its own pace,” Thibaud said. “We design pieces that stay relevant beyond a trend, we took over our production partly out of responsibility, and our clients want to understand what they buy. Only time will tell us whether we succeeded.”

Eden already carries that hope in gold. Its three fruits come with parts that can be added or worn apart, so a mother and her daughter can share one fruit between them. Thibaud wishes the same future for every piece she makes. “In twenty years, I hope the daughter knows the name Fullord and feels proud to inherit one of our jewels,” she said. “If a jewel passes from one generation to the next and still feels right to the woman receiving it, it has said everything about the house that made it.”

Continued Reading

Made for the Next Generations

What is value, when a piece is meant to be handed on? Time, responsibility, consciousness and the independent houses that build for heirs.

Read the reading →