On July 8th, during the Haute Joaillerie in Paris, Buccellati presents its new jewel bags, a true tribute to savoir-faire: the new “bejewelled bags” are a stylistic adventure that celebrates artisan mastery. Their inspiration is rooted in the Maison’s past, recovering those stylistic codes and intuition that the founder Mario already experimented with.
As a tribute to the creative intuitions of his grandfather Mario, who turned small fabric bags into true miniature masterpieces, set with gems and embellished with dense embroidery, Andrea Buccellati has created a capsule collection composed of three one-of-a-kind bags, which take inspiration from the iconic shapes of the past to translate into an innovative and current design.
The inspirational push also came thanks to the repurchase and restoration of several evening bags that, in 2024, became the subject of an entire room of the exhibition “The Prince of Goldsmiths. Buccellati Rediscovering The Classics”, held in Venice, on the Giudecca Island. The commitment lavished on safeguarding the beauty and integrity of these historic bags gave full meaning to their role in the Maison’s varied production and pushed the creative will to study new shapes and decorations that underlined modern times, permeating them with history.
It was Mario Buccellati who, in the 1920s and 1930s, intuited the potential of these evening bags, elegantly embroidered and decorated with gold and precious stones: in a short time they took off so much that they became a real trend and all the ladies who frequented the Teatro alla Scala, in Milan, right next to his goldsmith “workshop”, wanted to show off one during the most social shows. Mario used very soft velvets and oriental silks, entrusted them to expert and talented seamstresses and managed to transform a functional element like the clasp of a bag into a real jewel full of decorations and creativity. By now they were a must-have for the most aristocratic and demanding Milan.
In the 1950s, Mario was able to interpret the taste of the American public, proposing creations that, while maintaining the distinctive elegance of the Maison, were characterized by a more linear design and different materials. These were rigid cosmetic bags, mostly rectangular, which Mario immediately reworked by imprinting his trademark, hand engraving, obtaining surfaces as soft as fabrics. Later, his son Gianmaria created them with a more geometric design, sometimes abolishing the use of fabrics in favor of engraved gold and silver, so they were more called “evening cases” rather than actual handbags.
The third-generation capsule collection ranges from the rectangular green velvet pouch sewn with a matelassé effect and an opening ponsoir highlighted by a cabochon rubellite, to the black velvet pouch with a clasp decorated with diamonds and rubellites, further embellished with a small Opera pendant. Up to the ultra-modern spherical handbag, in stretch black velvet, decorated with a double row of triangles and garlands with diamonds and a circular handle in yellow gold: an absolute challenge that becomes part of the Maison’s iconic objects.
There are no compromises in the execution: everything flows in the gentle lines, in the drape of the fabric and in the softness of the stitching. Innovation is the real protagonist. The elegance and timeless beauty of the Maison are perpetuated in unique and original creations, which maintain the stylistic figures of the brand and bring them into the contemporary with extreme naturalness.
