How do we carry culture? In what we read? What we wear? What we pass on? Bvlgari suggests it can be all three with its latest collection of limited-edition minaudières. Part jewelry, part heirloom, part work of literature, the collection is the black-tie equivalent of a paperback tucked inside a purse or a pocket. Its five bejeweled designs may look like a wearable compact, but rather than lipstick and lash glue, each holds a hand-bound book featuring the musings of women who have shaped culture at a grand scale: writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, actors Isabella Rossellini and Kim Ji-won, model Linda Evangelista, and architect Sumayya Vally.
For a project concerned with how we bring the outside in, the notion of home is unsurprisingly a throughline. In “Notes on Creating Culture,” Ngozi Adichie celebrates women as storytellers who pass cultural mores and ideas between generations, but cautions against passing down the ideas that hold us back. In “Notes on Honoring Tradition,” Evangelista considers the meaning of her Italian heritage through the lens of the food she and her family gathered around growing up—home-cured sausages, jarred passata from specialty grocery stores, and grappa fermented by her grandfather (she’s even included the recipe for her family’s sugo, that delectable Sunday sauce that simmers for hours during church). And in “Notes on Finding Home,” Vally conjures the sensations of belonging that activate her designs, reminding us that home isn’t just a room but a prayer rug, a bowl, the smell of boiled cinnamon, or the sound of a loved one’s voice.
The collection’s two remaining essays slalom between even greater interiority and a more expansive consideration of life. In “Notes on Cultivating Inner Calm,” the South Korean Kim reflects on how she finds peace with herself in a culture that often demands perfection. And in “Notes on Listening to Nature,” Rossellini—who has dedicated much of her later career to illuminating the strange, alien beauty of animal consciousness, including in the 2008 series Green Porno and through many years of fierce conservation advocacy—turns to the nonhuman world for a new perspective on what it means to participate in our society.
Each essay is encased in a minaudière adorned with some of Bvlgari’s most iconic motifs—sinuous serpents, ancient Roman coins, and designs drawn from the Baths of Caracalla—all encrusted with precious materials from amethyst to tiger’s eye to mother-of-pearl. Like a locket carrying the image of a loved one, the texts and their vessels are a reminder that culture is what we keep close.
Creative Direction by Akari Endo-Gaut
Photography Assistance by Alberto Vargas
Creative Assistance by Jesus Charris
Location: Lumin Studio
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