Bulgari’s creative director Lucia Silvestri admits it’s likely she has the best job in her company of 4,000 employees. Since she was eighteen Lucia has trawled the globe for the colourful precious and semi-precious stones that have become the hallmark of Bulgari’s more elaborate coveted pieces. Recently in Australia from Rome to meet with clients, we caught up with her in a room behind one of their stores where she sat surrounded by gems and stones arranged into shadows of the necklaces and bracelets they’ll eventually become. Completing the jewels will require trips far and wide to source the remaining pieces. Clearly in her element, she is charming and fascinating and evidently truly passionate about her life’s work.
Lucia’s time at Bulgari began when she took a temporary position filling in for someone on maternity leave. A then young Mr. Bulgari took her under his wing and the rest is history, “Timing is very important in life. Mr. Bulgari was looking for a young person who could follow him during his trips to buy stones. He understood that I had a kind of talent for this because I immediately started to place the gems and mix colours. I fell in love with the gems. When I entered this world I felt like Cinderella and Mr. Bulgari was like Indiana Jones. It was really special for me.”
It can take as long as one year for a necklace to come together with the gems being collected from all over the world – sapphires from Sri Lanka, Spinels from Myanmar, Emeralds from Nambia, mandarin garnets from here and aquamarines from there – and when I ask if the gem sourcing trade has changed over the years, the answer is a resounding yes. “It’s definitely more comfortable now, at the beginning we were literally in the jungle. I remember the first time I went to Bangkok to see the city’s best supplier, he had a real tiger roaming on the balcony of his office. The next year I went back he had a wolf. He also had guns…it was very dangerous. That kind of thing was normal then. I have met some very amazing people. It’s a secret world, nobody knows about it. I could write a book.”
Lucia gathers creative inspiration from wherever she happens to be in the world and she shows us a necklace and a bracelet, which she’s been creating during her stay in Australia. The inspiration of the Australian bush is evident with the green of gums and yellow of wattle peppered throughout. She believes wholeheartedly in the power and energy of the stones declaring she never feels tired when working with gems. “The suppliers often need to tell me to go home because it’s so late in the evening and I have no idea. The stones keep me alive.” She also carries a special talisman – a mesmerisingly smooth and creamy sapphire that she hands me. It emits a three dimensional six-pointed star when the light hits it. She is kind to let me hold her good-luck stone, not everyone would. She adds, “I like to share the energy, this is an energetic stone. It’s like an explosion.”
While she is often away, Rome is very important to Lucia – she needs to go back there to centre herself and gather the final inspiration for the jewels she’s creating. She seems genuinely fond of the Bulgari family. Paolo and Nicola Bulgari are two of the three grandsons of Sotirios Bulgaris who founded the company in 1884 and they run the empire to this day. And while the focus is on producing expensive, quality jewellery, bags, accessories and fragrances for consumers with larger than average disposable incomes, there is a charitable side too and to date the company has raised over 30 million dollars for the Save the Children foundation.
Towards the end of our meeting I show Lucia a small white opal from Coober Pedy that I brought with me and ask whether Bulgari would ever consider using one of the Australian stones in a setting. “The Italians have a superstition about opals not being good luck. I think it’s beautiful but we don’t use opal at all. It’s a tradition – Mr Bulgari wouldn’t look at an opal because of the bad luck.”
Credits
Text Briony Wright
Photography Trent Power