Belda Factory

Belda's origins lie not in Prague but in New York. In 1915, twenty-one-year-old Ladislav Belda, from the glass-bead region around Jablonec nad Nisou, emigrated to Manhattan and founded Czechoslovak Beads & Co., producing hand-made glass beads. He returned to Czechoslovakia in the 1920s and established a jewelry and glass-pearl manufacturing base in Turnov that remains the company's production hub today.

The business has passed through four generations of the same family: from Ladislav to his son Jiří Belda Sr., then to grandson Jiří Belda Jr., who has led the bulk of the hands-on design work in recent decades, and now to great-granddaughter Viktorie Beldová. Rather than working in isolation, Belda has repeatedly commissioned outside designers to reinterpret its jewelry, collaborating with architect Eva Jiřičná, designer Maxim Velčovský, artist David Černý, and the Vrtiška & Žák studio on a menswear-oriented collection. For its 2015 centenary, the house released the "Český Ráj" ("Bohemian Paradise") collection, drawing on motifs and stones associated with that region, which earned a Czech Grand Design Award nomination.

Alongside its Turnov manufacturing base, Belda maintains a Prague presence, including a studio in Bubeneč that receives visitors by appointment, continuing a hand-craft tradition now in its second century.