The Bold and the Beautiful: Bulgari's High Jewellery

​If all roads lead to Rome, as the aphorism has it, then, by nature, they must lead to Bulgari. 

The multifaceted jeweller sparkles with all the Italian glamour, power and elegance befitting of the great city itself. As unapologetically bold as the Romans, Buglari designs shine with colours and in collections that are immediately recognisable and always exquisite. Inspired by its ancient Roman past, Buglari designs with the art and architecture of its homeland, recalling the magnificence of the Eternal City in each of its visionary creations.

No more so than now, as this year sees Bulgari High Jewellery savouring its Italian personality – the blues of the Mediterranean, the pinks of Roman sunset, the golds of an ancient age – as it captures the colours, light, and expressivity of its homeland into three facets of inspiration: daring Italian Extravaganza, romantic Mediterranean Eden and mythical Roman Heritage.

ITALIAN EXTRAVAGANZA 

The Italian lifestyle is joyful, expressive and charismatic – captured in Bulgari’s Italian Extravaganza. Rich with colour, exuberance and glamour, Italy is a magical backdrop for romance, the haven for design, a harbour for natural beauty, the very home of passion. Its magnetic personalities, succulent food, utopian landscapes and exquisite women draw people from all corners of the world – to visit or to dream of visiting.

The Divas Dream collection is inseparable from the halcyon days of La Dolce Vita, when film stars discovered their love for the Italian jeweller. As a symbol of grace and sophistication, and red-carpet success, the feminine soul of the collection resides in its ancient inspiration, when the most beautiful women of the Roman Empire made a lifestyle out of bathing. As the purest form of beauty, the Divas’ Dream shape captures the colours of the Carcacalla marble and curves of its ancient mosaics.

Born of the beautification rituals of ancient Rome, the Terme di Caracalla were the city’s second largest baths, built in 217 AD. Intricately tiled and architecturally magnificent, the marble baths were a beautiful meeting point for Roman citizens to purify mind and soul – the first “spa” in human history. Splashed with blue-hued gems, the Divas’ Dream Bellezza necklace in aquamarine, sapphires and diamonds recalls those ancient beautification rituals.

Swaying with the movement of perfect craftsmanship, the arches of the Divas’ Dream Gioco e Vanita, echo of the patterned Roman mosaics of an ancient palace. Preening with brilliant colour like the fanned tail of a peacock, the precious necklace combines blue sapphires, emeralds and diamonds that steal the show with extravagant perfection.

Divas’ Dream Eleganza brings us up-to-date with modern-day icons of fashion and flair, embodying Rome’s spirit, as it sways on the décolleté, like a graceful diva sashaying down along the klieg lights.

Before Italy became a republic, it was not a kingdom but an ensemble of principati, where the most prestigious families held the power resulting in acquiring the title of princes and princesses. By the nature of these families’ esteemed position, they had the privilege of enjoying the finest things in life. Ownership of unique jewels and precious stones could in fact endorse a family’s power, and build its legacy. Bulgari is inspired by the romantic idea of jewels fit for a princess, intended for royalty alone – jewels of prestige to be passed on for generations. Le Gemme Principesche sparkles with this royal notion, as its preciousness, femininity and strength are featured in designs of Bulgari magnificence.

Thus, Extravaganza creations are born of Bulgari’s Roman soul and  enriched with the sparkle of its homeland’s creativity.

MEDITERRANEAN EDEN 

Coiled around the history of humanity, the seductive serpent dates back to ancient Greek and Roman mythology, yet has charmed exotic beauties from Cleopatra to today’s Bulgari woman, and empowered them with its magnetism. Thus, hypnotic and lithe, the Serpenti Seduttori woman embodies not just a Mediterranean Eden, but sensual elegance in the modern-day Queen of the Nile. The cuff-bracelet watch, with sleek new designs that focus on the snakehead, the most dangerously beautiful part of the animal, is a first for Bulgari, and an innovation consistent with the Roman jeweller’s ceaseless creativity.

As much jewellery as it is timepiece, Serpenti Seduttori tips open its jaws to reveal the watch dial inside. Whether capped by a tourmaline, a tanzanite or a sapphire gem atop its head, the bangle Serpenti Seduttori shimmers in pink or white gold, and the resplendence of diamond pavé or diamond baguettes. Staring with perfect emerald or ruby eyes, Serpenti Seduttori timepieces give a new highly contemporary meaning to the preciousness of time. 

There’s nostalgia, too. Reflecting both the perfect hexagonal scales of a snake and recalling Bulgari’s vintage designs of the 1970s, the bold Serpenti Inspirations sautoir represents a modular element of design. Sublimating the scales of a snake with Serpenti’s seductive hexagon-pattern, the contoured play of blue and white gemstones produces a tactile, tri-dimensional creation to sway with preciousness. Cabochon-cut sapphires are paired with diamond pavé to alternate colour and texture, and bring peekaboo volume to an apparently flat piece – highlighting the design innovation of the Roman house.

Time is eternal and the new Serpenti Incantati chronographs tick at gilt-edge of innovation. Combining Italian elan with Swiss watchmaking expertise, a symbiosis of beauty and functionality, these creations highlight the very best of Bulgari and the woman who wears them. For added flair, sport the two-row watch bracelets, and hiss a little harder with your added wrist candy. In dramatic matte black or sunny yellow with electrifying brilliant red scales, the Serpenti watch-bracelet are also available in more precious versions of vivid black, ruby red or emerald green with exquisite marquise-cut diamonds alternating on the scales. Tipping open diamond-encrusted jaws as it peers with diamond, emerald, or ruby eyes, these exclusive Serpenti High Jewellery interpretations beautifully celebrate the precious nature of time. And to complete the full Ophidean silhouette, adorn the full-on head-over-tail Serpenti model.

For a change in pace, celebrate the natural wonders of the Mediterranean with the Fiore di Bulgari collection. Romantic in its sentimentality, the Fiore Ingenuo conveys the nostalgia of a childhood flower. With meticulously set blue gemstone pavé to create the flower-petal’s curves, the Fiore Ingenuo houses an exquisitely rare moonstone which dangles at the other end of the necklace, like a petal blowing in the wind. Dripping with precious tanzanite, sapphires and diamonds, the necklace shines with a uniqueness matched only by its masterful composition. 

Sparkling with colourful gem petals, Fiore Allegro conveys the lush joy inherent in nature in stunning gemstone combinations – aquamarine and rubellite gem petals – almost fragrant in their perfection. Delicately set with diamond pave, the masterfully carved chain dangles berries of red spinels, in a masterful gemstone tribute to nature herself. 

Art and nature make a fateful pairing in the Giardini Italiani collection which revisits the Renaissance, when artists first attempted to work with and shape nature itself, giving it new forms. The necklace dangles preciously into the décolleté. With one or two links to surround the neck, diamonds and emeralds curve with the delicate lines of an artistic gemstone garden. Shaped almost as a rose, the pendant encircles an iridescently prominent, 9.44-carat emerald centrepiece.

ROMAN HERITAGE 

And then it’s back to Rome, and Roman Heritage. Born in the Eternal City more than 130 years ago, Bulgari jewellery heralds the art, architecture and design that have rendered its homeland famous. Unique for being a jeweller that is also Roman, Bulgari celebrates its singularity within its mythical creativity – designs that exalt ancient coins, esteem historic dynasties and recall ancient legends.

From the eternity of Rome’s architecture was born the design of Parentesi, the interlocking metal components of Bulgari’s modular jewels. Their shape, being inspired by the travertine stones that pave the roads that used to lead to the Eternal City, the Parentesi (parentheses in Italian) pattern has today become a day-to-night jewellery staple for the modern woman. Drawing on the past, Parentesi jewels celebrate the future, with an emblematic play of geometries that render them into modern-day Roman masterpieces. Iconic Parentesi have been reborn as Parentesi Hamata, adjoining the glamour of the collection to the strength of today’s women. Reflecting antique cuirass – the core of a Roman knight’s armour – their design honours heroines of the modern era with a necklace and bracelet meticulously set with touchable diamond pavé.

Emblematic to the last, yet always first. Such is Bulgari and its Roman code.