How Giorgio Bulgari’s extraordinary lineage shapes his stunning fine jewellery brand, Giorgio B

Giorgio Bulgari’s extraordinary fine jewellery, handcrafted from the most rarified materials and presented under the brand name Giorgio B,  finds its inspiration at home. No, not his family home – though Bulgari’s gemstone prowess was certainly honed at the side of his father, Gianni Bulgari, the third-generation to helm the iconic Italian jewellery house Bulgari – but rather Giorgio’s own home in Geneva. Specifically, his wife, Carolin, the brand’s ultimate muse. “My wife gets to wear my jewellery first,” he says. “That’s where I really get to see the jewellery come alive.”

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This includes the latest Giorgio B collection, presented last week in London. An expansion of the brand’s beloved Palma collection, the new offering consists of three rings and the signature Palma earrings, all realised in titanium and an utterly striking blue. “Blue is a colour I love personally,” says Bulgari. “It’s a deep blue that’s not too metallic, it really works well as a backdrop to diamonds.” Single cut diamonds, set across different planes to create a spectacular brilliance, artfully decorate the earrings, which Bulgari describes as “a sea urchin crossed with a hedgehog”.

While the use of titanium offers a modern twist on the Palma designs, which have previously been made in gold, it’s also a practical choice. “The price of gold has just gone through the roof,” says Bulgari with refreshing honesty. “So I think titanium is very relevant today and it gives a good twist to the collection, with the sense of the metal and the colour.”

The “Brutalist Blue” ring, featuring a dramatic sapphire flanked by diamonds, is a standout but the real showstopper is the one-of-a-kind Palma ring, which boasts a large, rare emerald cut tanzanite. The collection will release in May, most notably at the retailer who first carried Giorgio B: Dover Street Market London.

Bulgari’s backstory is as singular as the stones he works with. The great-grandson of Sotirio Bulgari, who founded the family’s namesake jewellery house in Rome in 1884, Bulgari grew up in a “quirky” home (“The house was inside-out – the inside had to look like the outside”) packed wall-to-wall with paintings and sculptures. “Before entering my room there was a cube of mirrors. The back of the door, the side walls, the ceiling – everything was mirrored,” he says. “So it was an infinite me in every direction.” He likens entering his childhood room to going down a rabbit hole, like Alice in Wonderland. Meanwhile, his own love of exquisite objects was fostered from a young age; at 13 he was gifted his first Bulgari watch, which featured a red sharkskin strap. “I treasured it,” he says. “Obviously I didn’t wear it to school – it was for special occasions.”

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There were less fantastical practicalities of growing up in Rome in a prominent Italian family. “I had a very strange and privileged life,” says Bulgari, noting that he was taught to value quality and craftsmanship over flashy branding. This wasn’t just an aesthetic choice, but a matter of safety. “We had two kidnappings in my family,” he says, in a no-nonsense way. “My father was kidnapped in ’75 and he was held hostage for a month and released on ransom.” Two years after Bulgari was born, his cousin was kidnapped. “That was a bad kidnapping,” he says. “They cut his ear off.”

As a response to the very real threat of violence, from the age of seven Bulgari was shuttled everywhere – school, tennis practise – with bodyguards, in a bulletproof car. “I thought it was kind of cool in the beginning,” he says, noting that there was “never a moment” he “felt unsafe”. “It became annoying when I got older, because I didn’t really think about the consequences. I didn’t think Rome was a dangerous place, but of course I was not allowed to go anywhere alone. It was a golden cage, in a way.” In his teens, when his classmates would hop on a vespa and meet at the piazza, Bulgari was simply not allowed.

Perhaps as a response to the controlled nature of his upbringing, Bulgari spent a few years in New York as a financial trader before ultimately following in his father’s footsteps. He still remembers the phone call he made to his father, announcing he would no longer require an allowance. “It was a milestone not in my career, but in my life,” he says.

Four years later, he called his father up again and said he’d like to “learn the business” in which he had grown up. After working closely with his father for a decade, a four year-stint as creative director at Marina B, the fine jewellery brand founded by his aunt, inspired Bulgari to create his own brand, in which he could begin establishing his own design language and building his own legacy. Beginning with made-to-order pieces, Giorgio B launched its two debut collections in Gstaad in 2023: the sculptural Goccia collection and the Palma collection, featuring the signature fan-shaped Palma earrings.

So, aside from the fantastical materials and meticulous craftsmanship, what defines the look of Giorgio B? “I do believe design needs to be simple and pure,” says Bulgari. He describes his pieces as “vehicles for me to glorify precious stones, whether it’s beautiful spinel or tourmaline or diamond”. “These are blessings from nature,” he says. Notably, he’s developed two signature settings, including the Palma setting, in which the blades of a ring become the setting in which the stones are placed. “It’s classic without being too ostentatious, and it’s extremely contemporary,” he says. “It’s something I’ve never seen and I’m proud of this design.”

As the brand continues to accrue a cult following across jewellery obsessives, one iconic fan has already won Giorgio B on several red carpets. “Sharon Stone wore my earrings at the Oscars,” he says. “That kind of helped to put me on the map.” Bulgari’s dream, however, has long been to see his designs out in the wild, instantly recognisable as his own. “It happened at a party – I saw somebody wearing my earrings that I did not know,” he says. “It was a fabulous moment.”

As for whether he hopes his own children gravitate towards the family business, Bulgari has certainly thought about it. “Listen, it is obviously at the back of my mind,” says Bulgari, who shares a 14-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter with his aforementioned muse, Anna. “My daughter is a fantastic designer, she’s really into stones, she has a big collection of stones next to her bed in her room. She’s always shown a lot of interest in what I do, so maybe, maybe not. Who knows?” Bulgari notes that his father never put any pressure on him – allowing him that stint in New York, an opportunity to find and prove himself – and he would never put any pressure on his own kids. But still… “If one day, she knocks on my door,” he says. “I’ll be thrilled.”