Heritage curator director Gislain Aucremanne takes us on a tour of the legendary Roman house's innovations and style.

 Welcome to the Jewelry Connoisseur Podcast, and now your host, Sonia Esther Soltani.

Hi Gislain, so happy to have you on this podcast to discuss one of the most iconic houses in the world, Bulgari. How are you?

Oh, very good. Hi, Sonia. It's very nice for inviting me in this podcast. I'm very happy to discuss the whole wonderful world of Bulgari with you. So happy to be there. Thank you for the invitation.

So first tell us, what is your job? What are you doing at Bulgari? I think a lot of people will be very inspired, a bit jealous. So tell us, what is this new role of yours at Bulgari?

I'm the Heritage Curator Director. So in these words, the idea is to be handling the whole archive of Bulgari, which is all that would say the paper archives, all the documentation that we have, also the Bulgari heritage collection, which are the jewels, but also some of the watches and objects produced, I would say, from the past, which are now historic elements recording all the periods, all the decades in which Bulgari has produced some of the elements, and which are, I would say, fragments of history from which we can build the exhibitions, which could be, I would say, the third pillar in which I'm working in, which is really the development of how talking about the history of the Maison, the style, the artistic inspirations, thanks to exhibitions and other projects. So, in this, education, I would say, we have to train all the teams, the newcomers, but also the old one to rediscover the world of Bulgari. We analyze some of the elements we have found things to the research because we're updating the research, but also out of it. communicating to all the people who are interested within the exhibitions as talking on the heritage, which is something I really love sharing about this wonderful world of the history of the Maison.

That sounds great. I'm really excited about your job actually. And Gislain, you talked about, always improving the research. Is there also like, improving the collection itself, like the heritage pieces? Is it also looking for pieces that might have been sold to bring them back into the collection of Bulgari so people can learn from them?

It absolutely is, yes. What we do is that both from the archives, we're studying what we have in terms of designs, in terms of documentations, to know more of the elements, but it's also enriching, I would say, the collection. itself. We have about a thousand pieces in the collection at the moment from the very early silver objects produced by the founder of the Maison Sotirio Bulgari and all the workshops of the time, but also we're trying to enrich and augment some of the elements we have in the collection by looking for some of the element that will be missing some of the piece that would come, I would say, by chance, because we have people from private collections coming to us, things coming to auctions, things that would happen to arrive by chance by many other means. And the idea is really yes to augment the collection to make it bigger, not to be too big, but to really have a consistent presentation of the history of the Maison, like a collection would do, and to really explain the best way all the great moments in terms of history and how the Maison grew up in time with its own personal style.

Which brings us nicely to what is the history of the house? I mean, this podcast is called Jewelry Connoisseur. It's Bulgari, assuming most people know. But let's go back to the roots. You're talking about the founders and the silverware. so can we go back a bit? How did Bulgari start? And how did they evolve into the brand that we know today?

And what a name. I mean, we all know the famous quip from Richard Burton saying that Elizabeth Taylor, only word in Italian that she knew was Bulgari.

It's also the great years of Cinecitta and the cinema in Italy and all the glamorous stars wear Bulgari when they go to Cannes to the festival. There's a whole mystique around it. So thank you so much for giving us this timeline, Gislain.. And I have one question. When is Bulgari becoming so famous for its use of massive color gemstones and extraordinary color gemstones because you mentioned the gold but I think for most of us when we think of a Bulgari piece we think of really extraordinary color gemstones, diamonds, but the gemstone seems to be even more important somehow. When does this start?

I know she was a big fan of the Serpenti and we see her very often wearing a beautiful Serpenti, bracelets and I think there's even a picture of her maybe around her waist as well with the Serpenti. I mean, magnificent. Gislain, this has been so fascinating and you've told us so much about Bulgari. I think like I've learned so much. I'm sure listeners will have as well, but tell me, where can we. Let's see if we want to see the pieces. Is there a way for us to see them, to learn about them directly? Is there any exhibition happening at the moment that you would like to tell us about?

Well, we're going to close this podcast and I'm going to book a flight to Rome. I think that's what, after listening to you talking about the beauties of the city,

Thank you.

beautiful exhibition at Bulgari at the moment, and just the light, everything about it makes me feel like, wanting to learn more about it and see it in person. So if you are in Rome until mid May, don't miss it and explore the world of cabochons through the ages. Thank you so much, Gislain,, it's been such a pleasure. Really, really enjoyed our conversation. Thanks for sharing so much with us and looking forward to seeing what you do next in your role at Bulgari.

With great pleasure. You're always welcome. Thank you so much.

Thank you for listening to the Jewelry Connoisseur podcast by Rappaport Jewelry Pro. This episode was hosted by Sonia Ester Soltani and produced and edited by Vanina You can find all our episodes on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and read more about diamonds, colored gemstones, high jewelry designers, estate jewelry, and the latest jewelry trends on Rappaport. com slash Jewelry Connoisseur. Please subscribe to get all our new episodes and if you liked this one, leave us a review.