Being born a Bulgari is a bit like being born a Kennedy or a Coppola: Your career path seems to be preordained.
After all, the name Bulgari is as prestigious as it gets in the jewelry world, even though the company was acquired by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton in 2011 and its namesake family is no longer the owner.
Still, Giorgio Bulgari — the only son of Gianni Bulgari, the scion who revolutionized the house in the 1970s and ’80s, and a great-grandson of Sotirios Voulgaris, who founded it in Rome in 1884 — shares a heritage as storied as the Kennedys’ Camelot. And one he tries to reflect in his own jewelry line, Giorgio B.
“There was never any pressure for me to follow in my father’s footsteps,” Mr. Bulgari said in a phone interview from New York in May. “But there was something obvious about it.”
Mr. Bulgari, 47, was in the city for a trunk show at Bergdorf Goodman. His company reached a significant milestone in July when the department store agreed to sell his creations. “Being in New York is a dream come true,” he said in a follow-up interview. “I know my style is very much in line with the taste of the city.”
Giorgio B began in 2017 with bespoke creations for private clients who would visit Mr. Bulgari in his studio in Geneva’s Old Town neighborhood.
Dennis Quaid has been one such client. The actor met Mr. Bulgari in 2019 while he and Laura Savoie, then his fiancée, were vacationing in Casole d’Elsa, a small Tuscan town west of Siena. (The couple married in 2020.)
“We had been to all the big jewelry houses and still couldn’t find that very special engagement ring we were looking for,” Mr. Quaid said in a phone interview from their home in Los Angeles. “Meeting Giorgio on a hot summer night in a small Italian village was pure fate.”
For the couple, Mr. Bulgari designed a 5.03-carat antique cushion-cut diamond that he set with claw prongs on a pared-down rose gold shank.
“We hadn’t considered bespoke as an option, but Giorgio’s design was singular and felt very personal,” Ms. Savoie Quaid said during the call. “It was its uniqueness that made it so special to us. I stare at it all the time on my finger.”
In February 2023, Mr. Bulgari held his first public show in an art gallery in Gstaad, Switzerland, to introduce his Palma and Goccia collections. Since then, his sales locations have expanded to the de Boulle Diamond & Jewelry stores in Houston and Dallas, and to the Dover Street Market and the Louisa Guinness Gallery, both in London.
The two collections couldn’t be more aesthetically different: Palma featured palm frond designs that play with light on textured, hand-brushed gold surfaces while pieces in Goccia (in English, bead) had rounded forms in black, red or ivory enamel and were set with polished rose-gold studs or cabochon-cut gems. Both collections were produced by hand in Italy and Switzerland.
This summer, Giorgio B ventured into costume jewelry with the Anemone capsule collection, produced in collaboration with the footwear brand Aquazzura. Voluminous designs in aluminum, enamel and colored crystals, inspired by the sea, were created as rings, earrings and cuffs as well as ornaments for satin minaudières and high-heel sandals.
“Giorgio’s style is very Italian in spirit, with something cerebral about his craftsmanship,” said Amanda Triossi, a jewelry historian, lecturer and Bulgari specialist in Rome. “You see it in the detail, like the way his gold is brushed on one side and polished on another. These touches of refinement may not be noticed by everyone, but they explain why a Giorgio B gold ring is not just another gold ring.”
And, she noted, “his pieces are contemporary and very wearable.” That casual elegance seems to reflect the influence of his father, Gianni, who is known for transforming Bulgari from a small enterprise to an international powerhouse, including opening its first boutiques outside Italy, introducing a watch division and heralding a new era of design-based Bulgari creations using a modular formula, repeating elements in various combinations.
“Gianni was the jewelry genius of the 20th century,” she said. “He understood that people no longer wanted frilly jewelry, but pieces that were bold, recognizable and could be worn casually.”
As a result, she said, Giorgio Bulgari’s decision to work in jewelry has been “very courageous because Gianni is a tough act to follow.”
“I grew up bathing in design,” said Mr. Bulgari, who was born in New York and raised in Rome. “My father was always sketching, be it jewelry, bicycles, even a car dashboard for Fiat once. He always brought paper to restaurants or would sketch on napkins.”
In 2003, after working in finance in the United States, Mr. Bulgari became a product manager of GB Enigma, a watch and jewelry company that his father founded in 1989 after leaving Bulgari. (It is no longer in business.)
“I stayed 10 years at Enigma,” he said, “working in different areas of retail and getting a feel for every aspect of the watch and jewelry business — from product development; sourcing suppliers; opening stores in Geneva, Rome and Sardinia; to participating in trade shows.”
Then from 2014 to 2017, he was the artistic director of Marina B, the jewelry label founded by Marina Bulgari, another family member. (The label has been owned by the designer Guy Bedarida since 2017; Ms. Bulgari, 93, died in February.)
“I realized my aunt had created a unique style that was very much rooted in the Bulgari style and yet very identifiable as its own,” Mr. Bulgari said. “That is when I decided to go out on my own.”
When Louisa Guinness opened a new gallery space in London in October 2023, she added Mr. Bulgari’s work — including some pieces made exclusively for the gallery — to its selections.
“Giorgio’s pieces are technically interesting and he understands design,” she said. “He respects his gemstones by giving them enough breathing space and not overwhelming them with the setting.”
For Mr. Bulgari, the goal has been to uphold a family tradition while carving out his own niche in a competitive field.
“I want to be recognized for my own unique attributes, not just the name I carry,” he said. “To create something remarkable, that’s my mission.”
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