In 1956, Maison Mellerio created the Ballon d'Or trophy, the most coveted piece in football that takes nearly 100 hours to make

Maison Mellerio has handcrafted the Ballon d'Or trophy since 1956, requiring nearly 100 hours of meticulous work across five traditional jewellery disciplines.

The Ballon d'Or trophy, one of football's most prestigious individual awards, is created through an exacting process by the historic Parisian house Maison Mellerio, which has held the responsibility since 1956.

The production of each trophy demands nearly 100 hours of carefully coordinated manual labour, distributed across five distinct traditional jewellery crafts. Work begins six months before the award ceremony to ensure the metal meets the highest standards of perfection. The most delicate phase involves faithfully reproducing the spherical texture and classic pattern of a football, with goldsmiths filling the ball with a material called "cement" to allow precise pressure on the metal along pre-drawn lines, revealing the seams. This intermediate stage requires extensive experience and millimetre-perfect precision to avoid any structural imperfections.

Reproducing the thirty-two panels that make up a football takes approximately fifteen hours alone. Once the aesthetic treatment of the golden sphere is complete, the final assembly attaches the ball to a unique pirite base, ensuring no two trophies are identical. The craftspeople emphasise their pride in contributing to a trophy that symbolises excellence in football.