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After spending years at Tasmania’s Salamanca Markets as two young creatives selling handmade jewellery, sisters Hannah and Rachel Vasicek used that experience to build a multi-million-dollar bespoke brand offering solid gold and sterling silver for customers seeking quality at an affordable price point.
Founded in 2011, Francesca began as a passion project for Hannah, who started making jewellery in her childhood before selling at the markets at 16, with her 11-year-old sister by her side, helping bring the brand to life.
The company’s name pays homage to the sisters’ mother, who originally wanted to name Hannah ‘Francesca’ and encouraged the pair to build their business into what it is today - effectively another “baby” to nurture.
Speaking with Business News Australia, the sisters shared how the company grew from a market stall into a bootstrapped brand with three boutique locations across Tasmania and Victoria, a strong online presence and 86 staff to support their growing endeavours.
“We actually opened our first store in 2013 together, just on the outskirts of Hobart CBD. That year was crazy in that Rachel and I were making pretty much all of the pieces upstairs in our studio, and then we would go downstairs and sell all of the products out on the store,” explained Hannah, who alongside her sister was a finalist in the 2024 Australian Young Entrepreneur Awards and made the recent Australia's Top 100 Young Entrepreneurs list.
“Then every night, we close the doors and go and remake everything that we've sold that day. It was crazy. That year was when we had a lot of growth.
“We had insane growth online during COVID because our stores were closed, and it's definitely been our focus from there.”
The next location is slated to open in five months on the high street of inner city Melbourne suburb Armadale, marketing its second physical store in the Victorian capital. The sisters have also experimented with pop-up stores in other cities like Sydney, where they operated for two weeks in Paddington to get an understanding of their Sydney clientele.
The majority of Francesca’s sales come from the e-commerce side of the business, which started in 2016, with 25 per cent of orders coming from Melbourne, but also piquing the interest of customers in farflung locations from Singapore to Switzerland.
Regarding other possible expansions on the horizon, the duo has their sights set on either Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast or Sydney.
“We're hoping to be able to open stores in every state and have more boutique stores, so not rolling out heaps of stores and saturating the market - really rolling out beautiful architecturally-designed flagship stores in each state over the next couple of years,” Rachel said.
Sibling relationship put to the test
Having spent 14 years working together, the sisters acknowledged that their sibling relationship was put to the test when they began building the business.
“Every relationship - to really, really work well together - needs consistent hard work. When we first were in business together for the first few years, we did struggle because we didn't quite understand each other's superpowers,” Hannah explained.
"We were so young and we didn't understand how to talk to each other whenever there was any conflict. We’re very proud to say that we went through some really amazing self-development coaching separately…we had an amazing mediator who helped us understand each other and our conflict styles.
“That was a total game changer for us in our working relationship. I think realising that Rachel is such an incredible creative and her being the leader of the creative in the business and realising that I love numbers, data and strategy helped any sort of friction that we had over the years.”
To ensure the production and quality are up to scratch, both sisters travel to jewellery fairs each year, working with only a select few manufacturers that have been vetted, with the process including visits to factories where their products are made.
“As the business has grown, it's definitely been a challenge to maintain the amount of product we put out, plus maintaining our quality is something that we're not willing to drop the ball on because it is what a huge backbone of our company,” Rachel explained.
“We've got a huge repeat customer database because our quality is proven. All of our manufacturers go through ethical processes.
“We visit our suppliers; we visit the factories that things are made at. It's all very streamlined at this point, but as we scale, it is becoming something that we're aware of.”
The importance of giving back
To date, Francesca Jewellery has also donated more than $1.1 million toward charitable causes, with the brand selling pieces that give back to local charities like Autism Awareness Australia, Bowel Cancer Australia, National Breast Cancer Foundation, children’s charity Variety Australia, the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, mental health awareness organisation Stay ChatTY, and Motherless Daughters.
For most sales under the Giving Back collection, $20 is donated back to the listed charity, while some pieces ranging from $60 to $228 are donated in full to the intended cause.
“From day dot, we have given meaning to everything that we do, and our customer really feels that. We have a huge charitable side of our company, which Hannah and I early on flagged - What does success mean to us? Success means nothing unless we're giving back,” Rachel said.
“We joined with our community to really create this beautiful brand ethos of as we grow, we really want our altruism to grow.”
For the sisters, this purpose-driven approach has become central to the brand’s identity - one that goes beyond products to connect with community, values and impact.
“We're two female founders who've given a heart to a company...our tagline is give meaning to all that you do so we're really leaning into that,” Hannah said.
“I think our community can feel that, and they know that they're buying into a bigger picture than just a piece of jewellery.
“I hope that it inspires the younger generation to realise that they can go out and do something that they love and grow it.”
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