Why Buccellati’s comeback could lure you into jewellery collecting

If you’ve sailed past the beautiful shop windows of the Buccellati boutique at The Shoppes@Marina Bay Sands and were intrigued by the brand, you’re not alone. Hong Kong-based Stewart Young, auction house Bonhams’ Asia director and head of jewellery, says, “Buccellati is a name that is mainly known to people who are into jewels. If they’re not, they don’t know.”

Once a revered luxury name in Italy, if not the world, Buccellati is a heritage house that enjoyed its heyday in the mid-1900s. Even though it gradually lost visibility on the global stage over the decades that saw also two ownership changes, the Richemont Group, which bought over the business in 2019, looks determined to set things right.

The might of the Swiss conglomerate is currently turning Buccellati’s fortunes around, increasing its retail presence from 28 to 48 standalone boutiques in major cities. In fact, its official opening on our shores in June 2022 marked the maison’s milestone entry into Southeast Asia.

Thanks to Richemont, the singularity of its aesthetic remains firmly entrenched in its DNA today — through the current stewardship of third- and fourth-generation descendants Andrea and Lucrezia Buccellati in senior management and creative positions.

Identifiable at a glance, Buccellati jewels are defined by highly distinctive designs that blend delicacy with intricacy and textural details — often in two-toned gold. Underscoring that is exemplary craftsmanship.

“It’s not a brand that focuses on the big stones or how important the ruby or sapphire is. It’s about workmanship and quality. Buccellati makes art pieces that are finely hewn by human hands,” adds Young.

The one and only

The Italian maison was founded in 1919 by Mario Buccellati (1891-1965), a gentleman-goldsmith’s son who had served an apprenticeship at the prestigious Milanese jewellery firm Beltrami and Besnati to learn Italian gold smithing traditions and its ancient techniques.

After establishing himself there, he took over the declining business post-World War I when he was 28, and opened his first boutique in the city’s Via Santa Margherita 5 near the famous La Scala Theatre. So well-received was his first showing at the Madrid Exposition in 1920 that his creations were all sold out.

In the years that followed, the man who’d earned the name the “Prince of Goldsmiths” from Italian aristocrat and poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, launched an illustrious jewellery dynasty that has remained in continuous operation until today. Among his clients were European and Egyptian nobility and royals, as well as new-wealth industrialists and businessmen.

For 94 years, Buccellati had remained in family hands. Mario was famed for his signature tulle style, which translates lace weaving into openworked and honeycombed gold jewellery, and extraordinary techniques that impart a fabric-like softness and sheen to metals. 

He’d pioneered the bold combination of yellow and white gold long before it became commonplace, yet kept the use of gemstones as subtle accents instead of flashy centrepieces.

Renaissance decorative patterns and naturalistic motifs were also heavily referenced but interpreted stylistically in his creations, which also included exquisite silver lifestyle and decorative objects. Regal and discreet, his creations were the sum of layers of incredible artistry that became his trademark.

Mario’s four sons were roped in for Buccellati’s domestic expansion, with his eldest son, Gianmaria (1929-2015), taking on the mantle of his creative vision and managerial leadership. After the founder’s death, the second generation continued the family legacy internationally with seven directly owned boutiques and a presence in multiple luxury capitals.

Coming into his own as a worthy jeweller in the 60s and 70s, Gianmaria debuted his eponymous brand that ran in parallel to the family enterprise, and founded the Italian Gemological Institute (IGI), which he presided over for 25 years.

As an heir, he enshrined the Buccellati name for posterity by establishing the Gianmaria Buccellati Foundation and curating museum exhibitions, including a landmark 2000 showcase at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in New York City.

It was also during Gianmaria’s tenure that Asian jewellery connoisseurs, namely in Japan and Hong Kong, were introduced to the brand. Young of Bonhams recalls just how esteemed it was: “Remember cantopop singer Anita Mui? She’d bought a Buccellati pearl and diamond necklace, with matching earrings, for her wedding that never happened. She wore them with a white bridal gown for her last song at her last concert before she passed away, and that set has since been replicated for a movie.”

According to Young, the wealthy were happy to part with their money for the brand. “It was such a big brand from the West. My aunt bought a Buccellati brooch, which she wore on almost every occasion, for HKD80,000 ($13,209 in present-day) in the 60s. Her husband laughed at her and asked why she didn’t just buy three apartments instead. During the 70s, new units in Sheung Wan cost about HKD25,000 each.”

The next chapter

Today, after six short-lived years under the 2013 majority acquisition of an Italian private equity firm followed by a Chinese conglomerate’s 100 per cent buy-out in 2016, Buccellati is set to rise again as part of the Richemont empire.

While according to Young, the brand’s legacy is still deeply cherished by elite jewellery collectors who are willing to pay top dollar for its vintage pieces, the brand has turned its sights to wooing the new generation of tastemakers.

The past two years alone witnessed a hive of activity. Last April, the house published a coffee table book in tribute to the genius of its founder. Apart from a joint exhibition with the London-based Saatchi Gallery, Buccellati was present at major art and design shows in Europe, such as the Milan Design Week, Homo Faber in Venice, and TEFAF Maastricht in the Netherlands. 

This February, Buccellati journeyed with fashion designer and philanthropist Talita von Furtensberg to Portofino to shoot a campaign evoking Europe’s glamorous Golden Era and the “La Dolce Vita” lifestyle. At the Paris High Jewellery week this July, it presented a capsule collection of gold- and gemstone-embellished evening clutch bags recalling the pieces made by Mario himself from the 20s to 50s. 

New designs also came fast and furious. One of the most memorable was the 2023 collection of flexible, elaborate high jewels abstracted from the colours and shapes of Byzantine-period mosaics.

Playing up its Renaissance sensibility, Buccellati has also introduced new takes on its opera necklaces and open-worked lily motifs to its iconic Macri line of floral-patterned cuff bangles. 

Mario’s original tulle range, having been updated with more lightness, linearity, and diamond decorations by Gianmaria, now takes on more iterations. And most recently, the brand released a new series that reimagines the hoop earrings worn by the Sumerian and Egyptian civilisations through the Italian house’s stylistic language.

It might be hard for the consumer to remember all the house’s ancestral Italian techniques still presently used, such as the fine engraved lines termed rigato, the ornate figurative or floral motifs known as ornato, or the soft and velvety etching called segrinato.

However, should one have the opportunity to come face to face with Buccellati jewels, it is a memory of handcrafted splendour that will — and should — never be forgotten.