Cast in stone
From Elizabeth Taylor to Zendaya, Bulgari’s hypnotic Serpenti collection has captured the attention of some of the world’s most powerful women and become synonymous with beguiling femininity. Vogue Living talks to Bulgari creative director Lucia Silvestri about the soul behind the glamour.
Lucia Silvestri loves gemstones. The creative director and chief gems buyer for Italian luxury jeweller Bulgari has spent much of her 40-year career as a modern-day treasure hunter, seeking out the most radiant of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires and glittering bijoux from far-flung corners of the globe to create some of the world’s most incredible jewellery. The way Silvestri describes the sparkle, the depth, even the sound a handful of gems make as they tumble, clinking against each other from a cloth bag onto her work table verges on the poetic. “Listen,” she whispers. “I love the sound. For me, it’s like music… I could spend hours looking inside a stone. You can see life inside. You can see a meadow or a wood, leaves; you can even feel the wind if you look carefully. There is a marvellous depth — a world inside. I absolutely love it.”
The world of Bulgari — which spans a multitude of collections of fine jewellery, watches, handbags and fragrances, 300 boutiques and a series of luxury hotels from London to Shanghai with new sites due to launch in Paris next year, Rome and Moscow in 2022, and Tokyo in 2023 — started out as a small store on Via Sistina in Rome, founded by Greek silversmith Sotirio Bulgari. The family-owned and -run company — which in 2011 was acquired by French luxury group LVMH — has in that time, built a reputation for bold designs, vibrant colours and supreme quality in both its craftmanship and most specifically, its selection of gemstones.
Of all Bulgari’s storied collections, it’s perhaps Serpenti with its emblematic snake motif, tightly coiled Tubogas watches and, more recently, rainbowbright handbags that most vividly captures the seductive, daring spirit of the Roman jeweller.
It’s an ethos realised in 1948 with a spiralling bracelet-watch in gold, and made famous by the inimitable Elizabeth Taylor — who adorned her wrist with a diamond-and-emerald-encrusted Serpenti bracelet-watch during the filming of Cleopatra in 1962. “The only word Elizabeth knows in Italian is Bulgari” is the oft-quoted quip from the actress’s co-star (and off-screen lover), Richard Burton.
From Diana Vreeland in the 1960s and Grace Jones in the ’80s to high-powered stars Zendaya and Naomi Scott — the new faces of the luxury brand in the 21st century — Serpenti has come to symbolise a sense of feminine power. “Serpenti is inextricably bound to those women that made history something to be remembered,” says Silvestri. “They break the rules and capsize conventions — they follow instinctively their inner selves, their spirit of freedom.”
It’s a description that aptly suits the vivacious and charming Silvestri who, as a biology student, leapt at the chance to work with Sotirio Bulgari’s grandsons Paolo and Nicola, when her father, who worked with the family at the time, alerted her to a vacancy at the atelier. Today, as creative director of a team of 20 including eight designers, Silvestri works from the light-filled Bulgari headquarters at Lungotevere Marzio in Rome. “It is no coincidence ››
‹‹ that I am here in a very bright space,” says Silvestri of her gleaming fourth-floor studio. “This is very important when I have to select the gemstones.
“Our clients know the world of Bulgari through the stones. It is important for us that they understand that there is a continuous challenge that goes beyond the design of each jewel,” says the creative director, who describes just one occasion when it took almost two years to find two drops of emeralds at precisely the right weight for a client. “The search for top quality stones can last a long time — behind this there is a great passion.” What also distinguishes Bulgari, says Silvestri, is the desire to experiment with new creative solutions. “There’s a natural elegance,” she says, “and a certain aesthetic versatility that best expresses a purely Italian style that is bold, yet sophisticated, contemporary and stylish.”
Indeed Italy, and more specifically, Bulgari’s Roman heritage is the very essence of the brand and a subject particularly close to Silvestri’s heart. “I was born and raised in Rome and I wouldn’t change it with any other city in the world,” she says. “Rome is a city that you can never stop discovering. I adore walking in the gardens… I adore the terraces, where you have this incredible view of the city with the roundness of its churches and cupolas, and such a unique light.”
The shapes and tones of the Eternal City inform the jewellery design. “I just need to see a building or a sidewalk or the colours of the sky to give me a thousand inspirations,” says Silvestri. “Our Roman background, which is unique in the world, still fascinates our international clientele.”
This magnetic allure is more than apparent in the Serpenti collection, which Silvestri evolves each year with new additions, one of the most recent being the Serpenti Seduttori — a single-strap edition of the iconic wrap bracelet-watch designed to reflect the ever-changing lifestyle of Bulgari’s savvy clientele. The Seduttori joins the successful 2017 launch of the Serpenti Viper jewellery — a joyful, stackable series of bracelets, rings, earrings and necklaces with stones such as malachite, onyx and carnelian — in its appeal to a younger generation intent on expressing a new kind of everyday glamour.
Inspired by the signature serpent motif, the new pieces are designed to imitate the natural beauty of a snake’s scales. “The spellbinding effect is created from precious jewels and metals, and interpreted in countless ways,” says Silvestri. “It appears in diamonds for a full pavé bracelet; is carved into scales for a pink gold ring; as a net designed to lightly encircle pavé diamonds around the wrist; or as angular markings created in precious stones atop the snake’s head.”
Perhaps the most demanding aspect in the production of new jewellery pieces, says Silvestri is conjuring a distinctive design that is also adaptable to wear on any occasion. “It’s one of our greatest challenges,” she says. “We strongly believe in our values of creativity and quality which made — and are continuing to make — Bulgari’s identity and style. But of course each of these values must be reinterpreted, must always surprise, and be in constant evolution for women that are never the same.” bulgari.com
“I just need to see a building or a sidewalk or the colours of the sky to give me a thousand inspirations. Our Roman background, which is unique in the world, still fascinates our international clientele”
LUCIA SILVESTRI