The Nightly On Innovation: How Bvlgari creative director Lucia Silvestri combines innovation with tradition

Bvlgari creative director Lucia Silvestri’s desk in Rome is not unlike any you would find in a senior executive’s office — apart from the dozens of precious gemstones scattered across its surface.

In the world of high jewellery and the broader fashion industry, Silvestri is as rare as any of the stones sparkling in front of her.

At 18, she took a summer job in the gemmological department at the company, at the behest of her father, to earn a little money while studying biology at university.

In her first meeting with chairman Paolo Bulgari, whose grandfather founded the company in 1884, Silvestri was transfixed by the sheer quantity and variety of precious stones littering his desk.

More than 45 years later, the former intern has risen to the most important creative role at Bvlgari, spending the past decade traversing the globe in search of unique gems and conceiving the settings that will elevate them to high jewellery status.

The fashion industry typically makes splashy creative director appointments to tap into the zeitgeist or, in some instances, realign a wayward brand with its core identity.

To actually earn this position at a legendary fashion house, based on merit accumulated over decades within a company, is not just unusual, it might be unprecedented in the modern era.

One might assume the weight of Silvestri’s history at Bvlgari hangs as heavy around her neck as the company’s Magnus Emerald necklace, as worn by actor Priyanka Chopra at this year’s Met Gala.

One of five Gallery of Wonders pieces conceptualised by Silvestri for Bvlgari’s 2025 Polychroma collection, the necklace features a 241.06-carat emerald she sourced from Colombia, the largest faceted stone ever set by the Roman jeweller.

Institutional knowledge and innovation aren’t mutually exclusive, but the former often limits the latter, which is why fashion houses usually look outside the building for creative directors.

After more than four decades at a 141-year-old company with the proudest of traditions, Silvestri sees innovation as more than just a buzzword on a press release.

“This is my responsibility,” Silvestri says.

“When I started my career, I learned from Mr Bulgari the idea to innovate, to be brave, to mix colours, discover new gems, research and don’t be shy with the gems.

“This is my responsibility, and I think that now it is in my blood after 45 years, but I love this kind of challenge.”

Embracing the challenge resulted in Polychroma, arguably the most ambitious collection in Bvlgari’s storied history, which was unveiled earlier this year at the Greek Theatre in Taormina, Sicily.

In the town best known as the setting for the second season of The White Lotus, Silvestri’s 600-piece collection, including 60 so-called “Millionaire” pieces, brought its own sense of drama.

The collection pays homage to Bvlgari’s legacy while also pushing the boundaries of jewellery design, harnessing cutting edge technology developed at the company’s newly expanded Manifattura in Valenza, the world’s largest single-branded jewellery manufacturing site.

“The technology can be used to clean, to make more soft, more precise, the elements in a jewel,” Silvestri explains.

But technological innovation, when imprudently applied, has a way of homogenising the end result, eliminating the very thing that makes a piece unique.

So, technology can only take you so far in one of the world’s oldest professions. Sometimes the old ways are best.

“We have in our workshop three different generations of artisans and sometimes they are working on the same piece, and their hands are very, very important,” the creative director says.

“So, we can use the technology in a clever way, but we need to see the artisans’ hands in our high jewellery, for sure.

“Because some imperfections are really the (proof) that there are hands behind the piece.”

This year’s Met Gala served as a soft launch for Polychroma, with actors Zendaya and Anne Hathaway, and rapper A$AP Rocky, joining Chopra as celebrities sporting the collection on the red carpet.

These opportunities, and partnering with celebrities to generate exposure on social media, are another way Bvlgari is adapting to the times.

Silvestri watches awards season closely to see how her work is displayed.

“Maybe sometimes the dress is not really my cup of tea, but, of course, we like the way that they wear the jewels,” she says.

From concept drawing to sitting on a client’s neck, a milestone piece may take as long as nine months to arrive, with something like the Polychromatic Bloom necklace crafted from more than 500 individual pieces.

Its creation is instructive.

“The approach is starting from the gems,” Silvestri says. “When we find the gem that is really unique, one of a kind, very difficult to find, it inspires me a lot, so we decide that that can be the first step to create something spectacular.”

In the case of the Polychromatic Bloom, the gem was a 106.36-carat rubellite, among the rarest type of tourmaline.

“It was the best cabochon rubellite that I ever saw in my life, and I bought it in Jaipur,” Silvestri reveals.

“The idea was to create a necklace with the rubellite. Then I bought a (55.52-carat) peridot in Hong Kong with the idea to make another necklace, and another with a (55.11-carat) tanzanite from New York.

“But, when I received the three stones together here in Rome, I thought they were talking to each other, and I said, ‘They have to be together forever’, and I thought this can be spectacular.”

By combining a lifetime of experience with a commitment to constantly reinvent, Silvestri is as excited for what the future holds for Bvlgari as she was when she first saw Paolo Bulgari’s desk laden with jewels. Exactly as hers is now.

“Our honour is to work with the gift of nature, and announce the beauty of this gift, it’s amazing, and every moment is a joy for me,” she says.