Ultracraft Costume Jewelry Brand History
Before founding his jewelry company Ultracraft in 1970, Luigi B. Guadango (1936 – 2002) already had more than a decade of experience in the jewelry business as a model maker. Initially, Ultracraft was a small factory producing costume jewelry and gift items, employing about 20 people.
By 1972, Ultracraft Co Inc., 13 Industrial Lane Johnston, Rhode Island, had become a multi-million dollar corporation. The company’s president, Luigi Guadango, was an Italian who had graduated from the University of Naples and who became perhaps the youngest mayor of his hometown, Alife, in the province of Caserta.
Distributed internationally, Ultracraft brooches, pendants, earrings and pins traditionally included whimsical animals, as well as abstract and classic designs. Yet, the favorite design was cats.
Made from mixed metals, the products are marked with two words “Ultra Craft”, or “Ultra” in capital letters on a rectangular cartouche. Sometimes Luigi marked the items with his name in a hexagon, in addition to Ultra Craft.
Noteworthy, while he was the president of the Ultracraft Co Inc, he did not forget Alife, the city where he was born. Thus, in the 1980s, he became an honorary citizen of the city and received an award for his charity.
According to an obituary published in the Warwick Beacon newspaper on July 5, 2002, Luigi Guadagno was the designer of the crowns for the Miss America and Miss Universe beauty queens in the 1980s.
Ultracraft Vintage Costume Jewelry
Undoubtedly, Luigi Guadagno, like many other Italo-American jewelers, contributed to the development of the jewelry business in the United States.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, many American jewelry companies moved production to Asia, where the production was cheaper and in higher volume. As a result of the increase in cheaper imports from Asia, many Providence costume jewelry firms and factories closed. Among them was Ultracraft Co Inc.
Luigi Guadagno spent his last years in a beautiful home in the Town of Glocester, in Providence County, where he enjoyed gardening.
