I have just returned from Milan, where quintessentially Roman jeweller Bvlgari unveiled Eclettica, its latest high jewellery collection, in the kind of celebration that reminds you why this maison does everything at a scale others simply cannot. Drawing on three artistic pillars—painting, architecture, and sculpture—the 160-piece collection is one of the largest Bvlgari has ever presented. And it shows, gloriously.
The collection was first presented to press and clients at the historic Villa Necchi Campiglio, a jewel box of Milanese modernism with deep roots in design and film—Luca Guadagnino shot I Am Love here in 2009, and standing in its pristine rooms surrounded by blooming spring gardens, one entirely understands why. It was a fitting setting: beautiful, knowing, and not at all casual about it.
But back to Eclettica. As you might have guessed, the name is Italian for “eclectic,” and it is in this spirit that jewellery creative director Lucia Silvestri approached the collection—drawing on Rome’s storied identity as history’s most magnificent melting pot, a city that absorbed Byzantine, Egyptian, and Greek influences and made them magnificently its own.
“The theme of this year’s high jewellery collection immediately captivated me and sparked my creativity,” said Silvestri. “I have often sought to define Bvlgari in just a few words, and ‘eclectic’ is undoubtedly one of them. It is a quality intrinsically woven into the maison’s DNA since our very origins. I was guided by mesmerising paintings, by audacious volumes that challenged our artisans in new ways, and by architecture, from which I drew the grace of geometry. Each creation embodies the harmony of contrast, born of multiplicity and transformed into wearable art.”
The collection boasts 50 millionaire jewels, 15 transformable pieces, and nine masterpieces designated Capolavori—Italian for, simply, masterpieces. And let me be the first to tell you they earn the name entirely.
My absolute favourites among the Capolavori were three pieces that stopped conversation the moment they entered a room. The Seres Scarf High Jewellery necklace is an exercise in the impossible made wearable: assembled from more than 1,180 components over 1,600 hours, it drapes like a ribbon of fabric, its sapphires and emeralds channelling the feminine figures in Tamara de Lempicka’s Art Deco portraits—anchored by a detachable brooch set with a sculptural 31.90-carat sugarloaf sapphire from Sri Lanka.
The Serpenti Illusio necklace, meanwhile, plays a seductive trick on the eye: its serpent revealed not in solid form but in the negative space between flowing diamond contours, the silhouette materialising only once you lean in and look, anchored by a 14.01-carat antique cushion-cut sapphire from Madagascar.
And then there is the Serpenti Spira Cuff—fluid, clasp-free, alive at the wrist—its Fancy Vivid Yellow diamond heart surrounded by pavé and onyx, its hidden surfaces set entirely with diamonds. Art in wearable form, as Silvestri herself put it. She is not wrong.
Later that evening, guests were transported to Villa Arconati, a grandly imposing estate just outside Milan, its façade washed in a deep, glowing orange for the occasion. It was there that newly minted brand ambassadors Dua Lipa and Jake Gyllenhaal—joined by Anne Hathaway, Kim Ji-won, Priyanka Chopra, and Liu Yifei—gathered for a gala dinner curated by Michelin-starred Chef Viviana Varese. Following dinner, a dazzling show unfolded: the high jewellery collection brought to life against a layered system of immersive projections conceived in collaboration with digital art studio fuse*, accompanied by a moving dance performance and a stirring orchestra.
It was, in every sense, a very Bvlgari evening—abundant, eclectic, and bold. Much like Eclettica itself: a collection that does not simply reference art but argues, convincingly, that high jewellery is art—and that Rome, as ever, is where beauty comes to be reinvented.
This story first appeared on GRAZIA Singapore.
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