When the announcement came in April that Mary Katrantzou would be joining Bvlgari as creative director of leather goods and accessories, it marked a newly created position for the designer — but it wasn’t the start of her relationship with the LVMH-owned jewellery house. That began five years ago and has blossomed in “a natural evolution”, says Katrantzou on a video call from Athens, where she relocated two years ago from London. She now spends her time between the Greek capital and Florence, where Bvlgari’s atelier and craftspeople are based.
When Katrantzou staged a landmark show for her eponymous label, featuring couture pieces for the first time, in October 2019 at the Temple of Poseidon in Greece, Bvlgari loaned her pieces from its high jewellery collection.
“The show was in many ways a homecoming for me, and Bvlgari saw an opportunity to highlight its dual Greek and Roman roots,” recalls Katrantzou. (The luxury house was founded in 1884 by Greek silversmith Sotirio Boulgaris — the brand name would later be simplified to Bulgari — and today it is embedded in Rome as one of the country’s finest jewellery houses.) “I think, in that moment, we both recognised there was a strong affinity between my work and the Bulgari brand,” she says.
The relationship continued to blossom: In March 2021, Katrantzou took part in the collaborative series, “Serpenti Through the Eyes Of”, which was established in 2017 and has seen the likes of Ambush’s Yoon Ahn and Casablanca’s Charaf Tajer design a capsule collection for the house, reinterpreting its signature Serpenti snakehead motif. The collaboration, which marked Katrantzou’s first full range for the luxury house, included jewelled minaudieres, scarves and leather bags.
