Buccellati turns Burano lace into gold with Serenissima collection
Italian jeweller Buccellati has turned Venetian lace into jewellery you can wear.
The Milan house has launched Serenissima, a high jewellery collection — handmade, small-run pieces in precious metal and gems — inspired by Venice and the lace makers of Burano, an island in the Venetian Lagoon, The Art Newspaper reported.
The line recreates Burano lace in worked metal. It includes a bracelet and earrings that borrow their loops, flowers and fine nets from the island's needle-lace tradition.
Think lace built to last decades.
Buccellati makes the pieces with traditional Renaissance methods, working by hand rather than casting at speed. Founder Mario Buccellati first lifted the perforated patterns of Burano lace onto jewellery, using a complex piercing technique — cutting tiny holes and channels in gold to leave a lace-like pattern — to transpose embroideries made with Burano needles.
The company calls the result goldsmith's lace, Buccellati says. On its website it describes the work as translating the delicacy of lace into openwork gold, metal left open between fine wires and cut patterns.
What makes this stand out is how directly it follows the founder's notebook. Mario Buccellati set up the firm in Milan in 1919 and opened his first shop near La Scala, the opera house in Milan. The house is now owned by luxury group Richemont.
The present team remains a family affair. Andrea Buccellati is creative director, his daughter Lucrezia Buccellati is part of the creative team, and Maria Cristina Buccellati is global communications director. The company moved its headquarters in 2020 to a new building behind Corso Magenta, a historic street in central Milan.
