It all began in a backroom of a store in Haderslev. Today, Pernille Corydon Jewellery has expanded beyond Denmark’s borders and is available at more than 600 retailers worldwide. However, for Pernille Corydon, it’s not about explosive growth or being the biggest.
The journey of Pernille Corydon Jewellery started in 2007 in her own little shop in Haderslev. Today, the jewellery brand’s flagship store is in the heart of Copenhagen. The headquarters remain in Haderslev, forming the base of a company driven by the heart of the self-taught jewellery designer Pernille Corydon, who also leads the company’s 20 employees.
Dedication, decency and job satisfaction are key elements for Pernille Corydon. It was important at the beginning, and it still is:
“It has taken some time, but I stand by having soft values. It doesn’t all have to be about the bottom line. Of course, I want to sell jewellery, but I am driven by the happiness and well-being of my employees, dealers, partners and myself.”
The small business placed in the southern part of Denmark with a great passion for aesthetics and creativity quickly grew into a successful jewellery company with several employees and requests from both home and abroad. It wasn’t in the cards that Pernille Corydon would lead a jewellery company. She is trained as a pedagogue and has previously worked with vulnerable children and young people. But the dream of creating her own filled more and more. She brought along an entrepreneurship course, a loan from the bank and a great urge to create:
“I quickly realised what I’m good at and what I’m not good at. I simply don’t like the whole sales situation. I become awkward in it, and I still find it embarrassing to sell my jewellery. That’s why my first employee was a salesperson,” Pernille Corydon says with a laugh.
The team at Pernille Corydon Jewellery consists of 20 and several of the first employees in the company are still present today. It’s a workplace with room for employees, a flat company structure and a rare strong cohesion.
“We care for each other, both during and outside working hours. We make decisions together, and the best arguments weigh the heaviest – not titles. I rarely hire someone based on their CV, but more so for who they are,” says Pernille Corydon.
Value-driven company since 2007
Initially, Pernille Corydon produced all the jewellery herself, but as the brand grew and she created more complicated designs, she needed another kind of expertise in the production. She thus began collaborating with a small factory in Thailand, which 13 years later still produces her jewellery today and has become a close relation to her.
“I’ve often been asked why I don’t just go all-in, get a director and an advisory board. But I don’t have a board, and I’m not chasing awards. That’s just not what I should do. I rely a lot on gut feelings and gauge whether something feels right or wrong. I also need to be able to keep up. For me, there would also be major disadvantages to expanding wildly. What would I do with the factory in Thailand, with whom I’ve worked for so many years? It would mean that they couldn’t keep up with production. I wouldn’t want to skip such a long-term collaboration and, for example, move the production to China. I have grown a lot over the years, but with slow pace. This way, I’ve learned that it’s perfectly okay to do things my own way and not listen to the good advice of others.”
Foto: Pernille Corydon
