The Buccellati family is Milanese through and through, but earlier this year the jewellery house launched a new collection inspired by Venice. It’s called Serenissima, naturally, and re-creates in finely wrought metals the art of the lace makers found on the island of Burano. The craft is said to originate from fishermen’s wives translating their skill with mending nets into something more refined.
“I really didn’t like Venice when I was younger,” says Maria Cristina Buccellati, the company’s global communications director, speaking on the phone to Art of Luxury. It is after the launch and she is relaxing in Puglia. “We always went in winter and I couldn’t see what was so special. Now, of course, I find it absolutely magical.”
Also part of the Serenissima collection, inspired by Burano’s lace-making tradition, are a bracelet and earrings Courtesy of Buccellati
Buccellati still uses the traditional Renaissance methods for jewellery making, training young graduates scouted from Italian design schools. “They have to be extremely gifted and then it takes maybe eight years to become a qualified artisan,” Buccellati says. Because of this, fully fledged masters are few, which means it takes at least two years to deliver each new high-jewellery collection. “The work is incredibly challenging, and we are the last jewellers to fully engrave all our pieces,” Buccellati says. “The only shiny part is on the back of the jewel.”
The house was established in Milan in 1919 by Mario Buccellati, who opened his first store near La Scala. Though now owned by the luxury conglomerate Richemont, there are still a notable number of family members working in the company; Andrea Buccellati is the creative director and his daughter, Lucrezia, is part of the creative team. Its company headquarters remains in Milan, moving to a new building behind Corso Magenta in 2020. It is perhaps this that has allowed the house to hold on to its very specific identity.
Mario Buccellati was always fascinated by Burano lace, seeing in its lightness and transparency something he wanted to capture in his designs. For Serenissima, artisans have quite literally turned gold and diamonds into what appears to be lace, and should lay as delicately on the skin, while panels of open-worked metal demonstrate the unique piercing that is an exclusive technique of Buccellati. It is all a balancing act: the calibration of gold to empty space, and between gold and diamonds. The results? Airily light, timeless—and expensive.