Carrera y Carrera made jewelry for royalty for 134 years — then the courts closed it

Carrera y Carrera was founded in 1885 when Saturio Esteban Carrera opened a jewelry workshop in Madrid. For more than a century, the house crafted pieces for Spanish royalty, European aristocracy, and Hollywood celebrities. The brand became synonymous with Spanish luxury jewelry, known for its sculptural designs, mythological motifs, and meticulous craftsmanship. In the 1970s, great-grandsons Manuel Carrera and Juan José Carrera formalised the brand and expanded internationally.

The company built a global presence with subsidiaries in Japan, the United States, and Europe. Its pieces were worn by celebrities and featured in major film awards — Carrera y Carrera designed the official ring for the Goya Awards, Spain's equivalent of the Oscars. The brand occupied a unique position in the luxury market: Spanish, heritage-driven, and uncompromisingly artisanal.

But the same artisanal model that made the brand distinctive also made it fragile. Handcrafted luxury jewelry is expensive to produce, difficult to scale, and vulnerable to shifts in consumer taste. By the late 2010s, the company could no longer sustain operations. In 2019, a Madrid commercial court ordered the judicial liquidation of Carrera y Carrera. The workshop that had supplied Spanish royalty for 134 years was closed. The Goya Awards ring — a symbol of Spanish cinema — lost its maker.