Laura Grimes sits surrounded by lockets, compacts, lipstick cases and findings, and even though she grew up with her father’s jewelry manufacturing business, the only ornamentation she chooses for herself – on this and every day – is a pair of earrings.
“I only wear earrings, because I don’t change them every day. I grew up with jewelry,” she said.
But the fact that she’s not bejeweled, decked out in her father’s creations in no way diminishes her enthusiasm for Eli Group’s products – which range from cases to cufflinks. Grimes manages the company’s office, updates its Web site, researches trends and new business opportunities and has been involved with her father’s company – she calls herself a “jack of all trades” – all her life.
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And it only takes one meeting to see that the passion Elio Lossini feels for his craft must be somehow contagious. While the industry around him has changed, sending the bulk of jewelry manufacturing overseas, at 82 years old, Lossini still spends an average of 10 hours each day, six and a half days a week, in the shop.
“That hasn’t changed,” he said. “Anyone that retires will drop dead. You’ve got to have a place to go every day.”
The company, which includes four separate divisions – Eli Metal Products, E. Lossini, Parisi Tool and Apex Plating – is a family affair. Grimes’ brother, Louis Lossini, makes the company’s precious metal lockets, a cousin runs the company’s plating division and Grimes’ husband works with her in the office. And the family feeling, Grimes said, extends to more than just blood relatives.
“We have employees who have been with my father since day one,” she said.
Day one was back in 1955, when Elio Lossini started his own business when the company he was working for as a tool and die maker filed Chapter 11. Lossini incorporated in 1957.
Hinged metal cases were the foundation of the company.
“I’m a case man – that’s what I grew up in,” Lossini said. “Plastic killed the case business. A locket is nothing but a miniature compact, if you think about it.”
The floors of Eli Group’s building – in the old Ritz Manufacturing building in Olneyville – are burdened with hundreds of manual presses, each outfitted with a different tool. Having the machines ready helps streamline the production process, said Grimes.
Most of Eli Group’s products are the result of collaborations with other manufacturers – they provide the raw product, then can finish a piece when another company has embellished or personalized it. Grimes said the company keeps nothing assembled, and instead keeps the parts for everything.
“That way, we can immediately get the parts together and ship them right away,” she said.
Avon has been a client off and on for years, Grimes said, and Eli Group has worked with all the major jewelers in the area, including Uncas and Colibri, through the years. Today, she said, many of the company’s pieces can be seen on home shopping network QVC.
Compacts, pill boxes and cigarette cases might have fallen out of fashion for a time, but Grimes said the company has continued to come up with new uses and designs for cases, expanding its line through the years to include business card holders, wax perfume boxes, contact lens cases and many others.
Grimes said she has also noted an increased interest in older pieces among collectors.
Lockets have always been a popular keepsake, and metal cases and compacts have enjoyed a resurgence in popularity, Grimes thinks because “women hit the work force in higher-level jobs. Now they’re in boardrooms at meetings. They don’t want to take out that junky plastic compact they got at the drugstore . . . Luckily, we have a product that is still a current trend, but others haven’t been so lucky. They’ve had to close their doors.”
Through the years, the company has purchased the companies and designs of one-time competitors, and Lossini, who apprenticed for seven years to learn his craft, decries the lack of interest in perpetuating it that he sees.
“Nobody’s teaching anybody anymore,” he said. “The kids want computers. They don’t want to learn a craft.”
So the focus of the company now is on its strengths, Grimes said, rather than growth. Grimes said she hopes to have a complete catalog of the company’s products out by fall, along with an updated Web site. Many customers, she said, are finding them that way, and Grimes hopes the Internet will make it possible, for the first time, to conduct business-to-consumer transactions.
In the meantime, the father-daughter team predicts the company’s box-and-tongue jewelry closure will continue to be a mainstay of the business.
“They can knock you off in a lot of different ways overseas, but they haven’t figured out how to do that,” said Grimes.
“There are even some companies in China that buy from us,” Lossini said. “That’s a twist for you.”
Company: Eli Group
Owner: Elio Lossini
Location: 91 Hartford Ave., Providence
Web address: www.eligroup.com
Employees: 25
Year founded: 1957
Type of business: Manufacturer of cases, lockets and hinged bracelets
Annual revenues: more than $1 million
