Parsa Dayani is the man behind Zuccivo—a jewellery brand you may have heard of already, thanks to its associations with Persian rap culture. The brand has quickly risen to make a name for itself on the scene since its inception, and its founder has become the go-to for custom pieces amongst rappers like Chvrsi and Koorosh. In the world of hip-hop, jewellery doesn’t serve as just an accessory—but a symbol of success, style, and status. With his finger on the pulse of both the jewellery and music industries, Parsa is cultivating Zuccivo into a brand that stands at the forefront of the business, having already inspired other jewellers across Iran who have often outright copied his work.
The business of jewellery is one that has run through Parsa’s family for a couple of generations. It goes back to his grandfather who initially made his start at a young age, and “he basically started from scratch,” Parsa says. “He worked his way up to a gold manufacturing company where you do wholesale throughout Iran.” As for Parsa himself, he was born and raised in Tehran until the age of 12, after which he moved to the U.S. and eventually ended up studying at university before moving back to Iran. Due to this, he wasn’t necessarily exposed to the business from a young age, instead staying focused on studying. Nevertheless, jewellery is something he was always interested in. “I followed all these major jewellers around the world, like TraxNYC in New York, A Jewellers in London, and Johnny Dang in Houston. It was always something I was interested in because I knew I had the opportunity to make something happen in Iran similar to that. When I moved back to Iran, I started crafting my own designs. I started learning the process of manufacturing and was producing all by myself. I was going through the process step-by-step because I had the resources to be able to do that. And then one thing led to another. I decided to create my own brand and be part of that hip-hop culture in Iran.”
“I had a few friends that were already rappers and I started with them. I started creating and doing custom designs for them. I started collaborating with them, in terms of products that we sell to people and supporters, and then it just kind of went from there. Those jewellers that I was telling you about earlier—I was trying to be that jeweller in Iran, in the Middle East,” Parsa says. However, there’s a stark difference in that those specific jewellers tend to be known for very overpriced and over-the-top pieces that use the most expensive materials, whereas many of Zuccivo’s items are cast in silver and avoid being overly flashy and in-your-face. “It’s not quite like we’re in the same category… they do 18k gold. I have customers every now and again who order gold, but Iran is different. The economy’s not doing that well, so people are less willing to spend as much money as they do in the U.S. and Europe.” This hasn’t deterred Parsa however.
As for Parsa’s inspiration around the pieces he creates, his ideas come from everywhere. “It really depends. When I have collaborations with different rappers or artists, I sit down with them and we think about how the product can portray them or their album or what they’re trying to present to the public—how I can present that in the best way, just the way they want it. As for my own designs… obviously there’s always going to be trends, there’s always going to be products that are hot in the market. I try to produce what I think is good, what I would wear myself. If you look at my designs and my products, it’s not something that anyone can just wear everyday. It’s a little out of the mainstream line. It’s more what I think is cool and what I would personally wear.”
It’s easy to wonder whether Parsa has faced difficulties running Zuccivo in a country like Iran where copyright law hardly exists and jewellers are abundant, particularly in Tehran. His work has been copied various times before and remains a target amongst other jewellers across the country. Despite this, Parsa stays unfazed by it all. “Honestly, it felt great [seeing my work copied for the first time]. I created something that was limited and I wasn’t producing that product again, so people started taking advantage since the demand was so high. Other jewellery brands were trying to create the same exact product to profit off of it, and obviously they couldn’t catch up with the quality, but they were still producing the same product with a lower price to make some money.” At first, Parsa felt compelled to call out what was essentially the theft of his intellectual property on social media. “Over time, I thought about it. I was like, ‘it is what it is’. You can’t do anything because in Iran, there’s no such thing as copyright. There’s no such thing as being authentic. Everyone is just copying each other. This is not just my industry. I’m talking about every industry possible…. Everything in Iran is pretty much being copied off of other brands, other manufacturers, and they’re doing it better…. I’m not talking about my business specifically, but the bigger industries.” It is true that the broader business environment in Iran has been welcoming to copies of foreign products and services—due to the opportunities presented by a lack of robust copyright law, coupled with a highly-skilled, young workforce, as well as a low barrier to entry and a market of over 110 million Persian speakers across the wider region. Despite all of Iran’s challenges, investors such as South Africa’s MTN and Germany’s Rocket Internet have poured heavy amounts of money into Iran’s startup clones in recent years.
On the other hand, difficulties did arise in 2021 when protests rocked the country following the death of Mahsa Amini, who died under suspicious circumstances after being arrested for allegedly not wearing a hijab in accordance with the legal standards. The resulting environment at the time meant that many businesses had to temporarily shut down and stop operating, and that included Zuccivo. In Parsa’s case, he was unable to carry out any marketing, since as an online business, the threat to Zuccivo was especially high. The sentiment amongst the general public of Iran, as well as the feeling of an emergency situation and urgent crisis in the country, also meant that it simply didn’t feel appropriate to continue business-as-usual. “The government itself was trying to normalise businesses to be running, but it was just not a good idea. It just didn’t feel right, you know?”.
Zuccivo nevertheless continues to make a name for itself in the face of these obstacles. Parsa explains that he knew precisely what he wanted the brand to be from the very beginning. “I was always into the hip hop culture in terms of my industry. Jewellery has a huge impact on the culture in my opinion, even in the West. Jewellery is representative of you. It’s part of the fashion of the game. It’s part of how you are portrayed to the public. So with that being said, I always wanted to create something that would stand out to the Persian community. I always wanted to be like the Persian jeweller, you know, someone who knows the game, who knows how jewellery impacts the market, how it’s about status. I was just always into that.” To reach this position, he first had to offer his custom pieces to rappers for free in exchange for publicity. “I made a few deals with them, I was like, ‘I’ll make this custom piece for you and in return just shout me out, [do] some promotion for me, wear it if you like it’, and it just started spreading from there.” Surprisingly—the first ever custom piece he made was for Koorosh from Wantons. “He’s a pretty big name in the game, so that helped me out a lot. I started working with other rappers from there. I set a high bar for myself and he’s a really good person so he helped me out in a lot of ways,” he says. “You know how artists release an album, and they have merch, or merchandise? I thought collaborating with these artists before the album release and creating jewellery merchandise for the fans was a good idea because it created traffic, it brought traffic from numerous ways from the album, from the jewellery, from photo shoots. It felt like it was clicking.” It’s a strategy that he’s sticking with, as he continues to set up collaborations with various rappers. “I can’t really talk about what’s coming up because I have to finalize what’s going to happen before I mention it,” he admits. “But I’m doing my best to put out a new collection and initiate new collaborations.”
Photography EYPI