NEW GEM IN DELHI Bulgari dazzles with a high jewellery collaboration. By Natasha Kraal.
The last time Lucia Silvestri and I met was on a beautiful pastel spring morning in Paris during Couture Week, at the Bulgari flagship at Avenue Georges V. As blue-chip buyers swanned about the honey-coloured, cognac-scented store, Silvestri and I sat conspiratorially in the corner of the mezzanine, where the creative director of the luxury jeweller wore her latest creation with pride: a rainbow-hued Diva high jewellery necklace in tiers of mother-of-pearl flowers interspersed with gleaming peridot and wine-rich rubellite. “It’s called a ‘Happy Necklace’,” she exclaimed, of this fresh and glamorous creation that echoed the season in bloom and the spirit of the Mediterranean.
More than a year later, we meet again, on a spice-infused winter evening in New Delhi, at the newly minted Bulgari store in DFS Emporio Mall. This time, Silvestri presents a Serpenti cuff in yellow gold with diamonds, Bulgari High Jewellery maharani-worthy necklace of magnificent emeralds, mandarin garnets, and diamonds.
“I created it thinking about India,” she enthuses. “I bought the emeralds from Jaipur. The bright orange of the mandarin garnets and dazzling green stones offer a new combination for us. I was also thinking of the sari – so feminine, so sexy, so sensual – and wanted to create something inspired by and to be worn with it.
“It’s Bulgari style but with a touch of India,” smiles Silvestri. “I call it my ‘Happy Necklace’.” As she clasps it on, I remind her that was the name of her last show piece in Paris. “My favourite necklaces are all called ‘Happy’,” she admits. “That’s exactly the emotion a woman would feel wearing it.”
These high jewellery masterpieces are testimony to Bulgari’s glamour, artistry, and daring. They are made for women who, like Silvestri, are sophisticated and feminine, and who behind it all have a mind and success of their own. Someone like Anamika Khanna, the celebrated Indian couturier who wore the Indian version of the ‘ Happy Necklace’ that very night at the Taj Palace Hotel, during a gala to celebrate the opening of Bulgari’s latest venture into India. Calcutta-based Khanna was herself a star of the show, having collaborated with the Italian jewellery house to create over 60 exclusive couture creations to be worn with Bulgari high jewellery specially flown in from Rome for the event.
Presented to a star-studded soirée of the Indian elite, and Bollywood luminaries including Sonam Kapoor and Arjun