Before being catapulted into the “must-have” league by the mythic film Cleopatra, Bulgari’s serpentine jewelry was already making an appearance in store windows of Paris’ place Vendôme in 1932. The line was called “Tubogas” and made reference to the industrial aesthetic that was de rigueur in those days. The skeleton gave its watch bracelets a rendition of a reptilian suppleness: the same as a snake’s body, it rolled itself around wrists with its flexible gold hinges by means of a hidden spring. But the Italian jeweler’s popularity was not yet completely made. In 1962, it was in Hollywood that a passion for Bulgari began. Off screen, Elizabeth Taylor wore a special watch on her wrist: in gold, you could make out the tail and the head of a snake sprinkled with diamonds and emeralds.
The actress’ adoration for rare and precious pearls naturally led her to Bulgari’s boutique, located just a hop skip and a jump away from where they were filming – Cinecitta, in Rome. She didn’t escape the lens of the set photographer that immortalized the actress in the imperial ardor of the most sensual of beauties. It didn’t take anymore for the Italian jeweler to be launched to the forefront. Also on this same set, two cinema giants would take after one another: Richard Burton aka Mark Anthony, would go on to marry Liz Taylor. Their public romance would lead him to admit, not without ridicule, that “the only word she knows in Italian is Bulgari”. He confirmed Taylor’s devotion to the precious gems. The Italian brand would later make her an exceptional collection. Fifty years later, the only thing that remains of the jewels that accompanied it is legend.
In 1975, Bulgari honored bracelets with colorful enamel scales with an ad campaign. Its contemporary interpretation of one of art’s antediluvian emblems, a symbol of wisdom, eternity, and life, seems to work with all the application and grace of ancient statues; a perfect synthesis between geometric rigor and the dreaminess of shapes. Diana Vreeland, past editor-in-chief of Vogue, was conquered by this realism; she wrote “the snake is the motif in the wind in the jewelry universe… You never get tired of it.” Today, the Serpenti collection hasn’t ceased to update itself; it now counts watches, precious jewels, glasses, and handbags with a rare refinement. In 2013, it definitively entered into the history of jewelry with the publishing of a book dedicated to Serpenti style. Bulgari, Serpenti Collection sports more than 80 photographs and original sketches from the most iconic works of a line that drifts through the centuries.
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