Bulgari celebrates 140 years with Aeterna, the most precious high jewellery collection in its history

Just as "Rome wasn't built in a single day", according to the famous proverb, so the new collection of high jewellery that Bulgari has dedicated to it, and which it presented on Monday 20 May in Rome itself, with an evening event at the Museum of the Baths of Diocletian, was perhaps the one that more than any other sought to overcome the constraints of time. Starting with its name, 'Aeterna', which takes up the attribute that the Emperor Augustus already associated with the city where Bulgari was founded in 1884.

"We decided to celebrate 140 years with a collection that marks a new chapter in our history, while continuing it," explains CEO Jean-Christophe Babin. "To create Aeterna, we gave our master goldsmiths more freedom and time than ever before, to allow them to create jewellery that is truly eternal.

La collana Serpenti Aeterna, la più preziosa mai realizzata da Bulgari nella sua storia

More than 2,400 hours, a record number, were needed to create the Serpenti Aeterna necklace, the most precious necklace ever made by Bulgari in its long history, which exalts the purity and timelessness of the diamond starting from a gem of over 200 carats divided into seven drops for a total of 140 carats, a number that corresponds to the years of the maison (worth several million euros, and which a few hours after its presentation seems to have already received several offers to buy it). They worked for 1,700 hours on the Sweet Wreath necklace, a garland of colours, in pure Bulgari style, where tourmalines, tanzanites, topazes and diamonds meet. And two years of relentless search for the perfect sapphires finally led to the creation of the Sapphire Brocade necklace. "The beauty of luxury is that there are no limits," adds Babin. The future has to make the past better and this is an exciting challenge for our designers but also for our master goldsmiths, who participate deeply in the creative process'.

In order to develop these precious figures, in the context of the expansion of the manufacture of Valenza, Bulgari is also completing the new school: "There we have a pool of 700 goldsmiths who work mainly on everyday jewellery (that which can reach a value of around 100 thousand euro, nda), but to whom we offer the opportunity of a career that can take them, after about 10 years, to the alta gioielleria on Via Aurelia in Rome. The atelier in Rome will also be expanded, moving its premises and evolving its identity: 'In 2026 we will open the new workshop in the Eur building (the former seat of the city's urban planning department, nda), which we will restore to its original splendour: it will be larger, but above all we will provide visitors, customers and collectors with a special, luxurious area to welcome them in the best possible way and give them the opportunity to see and appreciate up close how our jewellery is created'.

Purchases of high jewellery, along with those of the more exclusive types in other categories such as watches and accessories, are driving Bulgari's sales, in a context characterised by a new normal, following the boom in purchases of luxury in 2023. Proof of this is that for the first time Bulgari has also launched a "high jewellery fragrance", an olfactory creation with raw materials of great preciousness housed in a bottle made by the maison's master goldsmiths and further embellished with a Serpenti necklace, costing 200,000 euros: "Our high jewellery is one of the most solid and at the same time pleasant forms of investment, customers know this well," Babin emphasises, "and they know it because they know it better and better, thanks also to the communication work done in recent years. In the past, this market was very discreet, linked to individual relationships. Today there is a real high jewellery season, with spectacular events, which engages all brands'.