The Serpents and Bulgarians

But how many have we seen?

“ Don’t forget the snake…The snake should be on every finger, and around every wrist, and everywhere […] We never see enough of it . ”

Thus said Diana Vreeland, the famous director of American Vogue, used to wear a snakeskin belt wrapped around her neck.

But whose are all these snakes? Obviously Bulgari

The snake enters the Bulgari world at the end of the 1940s, with a collection that uses the famous Tubogas technique, the tubular band inspired by the gas pipes of the 1920s which, thanks to its workmanship, gave structure and flexibility.

The first Serpenti debuted in 1948 as a square wristwatch with a spiral strap. It was only in the 1950s that it took on the form we know today, with a case in the shape of a snake's head.

A watch bracelet that with Giorgio, the son of the founder Sotirio, at the head of the Maison, began to seriously enchant its customers.

Liz Taylor always wore it during the filming of Cleopatra in Rome, she said she felt in touch with the enchanting Queen. Richard Burton joked that the only Italian word Liz knew was Bulgari.

The Serpenti was an enormous success, partly because of its shape - the snake is present on all ancient jewels - partly because of the innovative and unusual tubogas technique that made it modern, and partly because it was Bulgari.

The Serpenti was, and is, a must, over the decades its fortune grows and its shapes are reinvented. Even Andy Warhol, who owns a triple-row Serpenti Tubogas watch, says: “When I am in Rome, I always visit the Bulgari store because it is the most important museum of contemporary art.”

In 2006 it cannot be missing from your wrist of the ruthless Miranda/Meryl Streep, the ultimate style icon, in The Devil Wears Prada. And as we said at the beginning, she is always present at any self-respecting party or red carpet.

Hollywood stars always wear a unique piece, where usually some large carat stone appears. In Bulgari boutiques the family is expanding and snakes also appear on bags and accessories. Also in terms of jewelry the range and the numerous variations, with scales or with the classic tubogas, with stones, enamels and different metals, with or without a head the snake is now wrapped at the roots of Bulgari.

In 2023, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Serpenti, Bulgari has launched a unique international artistic initiative centered on the snake as an infinite source of creative inspiration: the Serpenti Factory. The snake is reinterpreted in a 2.0 key by a series of contemporary artists, creating interactive, technological, and innovative works that add to the world of Serpenti by Bulgari.

Serpenti Factory and the exhibition “75 Years of Infinite Tales”