The first edition of the VO Awards, Vicenzaoro’s official awards for creativity, innovation, sustainability and excellence in jewellery design, is now underway. The international technical jury has selected the three finalist jewels for each of the eight categories, singling out the most representative creations from the entries submitted by exhibitors from the ICON (high jewellery), LOOK (contemporary jewellery), and CREATION (gold and silver manufacturing) communities at Vicenzaoro January 2026, Italian Exhibition Group’s (IEG) international gold and jewellery show, scheduled to take place from 16th to 20th January at Vicenza Expo Centre. Two special categories will respectively regard chains, a distinctive element of Italian goldsmithing tradition, and creations by young, under 30 talents.
24 selected jewels will be on display in a special exhibition area in the lounge of Hall 7. On Thursday afternoon, behind closed doors, the expert jury will cast their votes, accounting for 70% of the final result. To promote direct dialogue between product and market, the remaining percentage will be decided by industry operators’ “popular vote”: buyers, visitors, companies, association and institution representatives, and the media will be able to express their preferences via QR code during the first few days of Vicenzaoro January 2026, from Friday, 16th January, to the morning of Sunday 18th.
THE AWARD CEREMONY
The award ceremony for the first edition of the VO Awards will be held on Sunday at 6.30 pm in the Palladio Theatre.
A STRATEGIC ASSET FOR THE MARKET
With the VO Awards, the exclusive The Jewellery Boutique Show format, which combines a select representation of Italian and international excellence across the entire supply chain — organized by product and positioning into homogeneous communities — and targeted matching with buyers from over 140 established and emerging markets, is enriched with additional content, services and tools for interpreting the complexity of the current times. «As a reference hub for the global jewellery community,» explains Matteo Farsura, Global Exhibition Manager Jewellery & Fashion at IEG, «Vicenzaoro makes its strategic assets available to the industry: trends, skills and innovation become tools for market intelligence and strategic planning. This is how we see the value of this initiative too.»
«The VO Awards were created to promote product excellence,» explains Michela Amenduni, Product Marketing & Communication Manager for IEG’s Jewellery & Fashion division, «identify trends in contemporary design, and stimulate a virtuous dialogue between creativity, manufacturing, sustainability, technological advancement and distribution.»
Hence, Vicenzaoro further strengthens its role as an international platform of reference for the gold and jewellery industry, capable of combining the business aspect with an increasingly strategic cultural and planning function for the global community of reference.
THE TECHNICAL JURY
The technical jury consists of twelve experts, a multidisciplinary pool of leading figures from the international jewellery, fashion, gemmology, manufacturing, retail and communications scenes, called upon to put their expertise to use in a multidimensional analysis of the creations in the competition.
TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION: Damiano Zito (CEO & Chairman at Progold S.p.A., president of The Vicenza Symposium)
PRODUCTION AND MANUFACTURING: Nicolò Rapone (Chief Operations Officer at Bulgari)
SUSTAINABILITY: Alice Vanni (CSR Director; Member of the Board of Directors at Italpreziosi) and Iris Van Der Veken (Executive Director & Secretary General, WJI – Watches & Jewellery Initiative 2030; Member of the 100 Women @ Davos Inclusive Leadership Council)
DISTRIBUTION: Stéphanie Hernandez Barragan (Buying and Marketing Director for Watches & Jewelry Galeries Lafayette Group), Costanza and Candido Operti (Owners and administrators of Antica Orologeria Candido Operti)
GEMMOLOGY: Rui Galopim De Carvalho (Gem Education Consultant)
DESIGN: Carolina Bucci (Designer at Carolina Bucci Firenze)
TREND: Paola De Luca (TRENDVISION Jewellery + Forecasting Founder & Creative Director)
MEDIA: Kyle Roderick (Fine jewellery and timepiece journalist for Forbes.com; author and photo editor of Bejeweled: The World of Ethical Jewelry (Rizzoli, 2019), founder and editor of @bijouxreview) and Federica Frosini (Editor in Chief of VO+ Jewelry Magazine).
The VO Awards technical sponsors are Artexpo and JEI.N solutions 3D.
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