INTRODUCING the limited edition collaboration between Bvlgari’s Inaugural Creative Director, Mary Katrantzou and Destrée co-founder, Géraldine Guyot — a daring re-imagination of the house’s famed Serpenti handbag.
The resulting Serpentine Top Handle bag is envisioned to become a “tactile and timeless” staple within one’s prized accessory arsenal. The brainchild of the two Central Saint Martins graduates, it borrows thematic inspiration from the anthropomorphic snake motif that has become synonymous with Bvlgari’s intricate metalwork creations.
Bvlgari Serpentine Top Handle Bag Collaboration with Géraldine Guyot
Evinced by the prominent placement of precise passementerie on the handle’s silhouette, the creation is directly informed by the serpent’s sinuous curves. Passementerie, a style signifier of Guyot’s Destrée, is also a technique embedded within Bvlgari’s fascinating 141-year-long history, with its use found in its early 20th-century jewellery pieces to suspend its forged silver pendants from.
Here, it takes form through curvilinear detailing created using electroforming, an artisanal fine jewellery technique that allows volume without weight. Its other striking features include a sculptural coiled handle replete with glinting gold-plated curves and an efficient press-button clasp, a pristine nubuck leather exterior and a smooth, supple nappa leather lining.
Bvlgari Serpentine Top Handle Bag Collaboration with Géraldine Guyot
Bvlgari Serpenti in Conversation commences a new chapter of collaborations for the luxury Roman house, which had initially explored the involvement of other distinctive design voices in 2017 with their Serpenti Through The Eyes Of series, which invited creatives such as British footwear designer Nicholas Kirkwood, Yoon Ahn of Ambush and Dior Homme jewellery, and the Parisian accessory label, Casablanca to reinterpret Bvulgari’s iconic Serpenti model.
Bvlgari Serpentine Top Handle Bag Collaboration with Géraldine Guyot
Now, with Mary Katrantzou at the helm as the brand’s first Creative Director for leather goods and accessories, the brand embarks on a new journey, one that seeks to spark conversations and celebrate female ingenuity.
Described as “a bold union of jewellery, savoir-faire and contemporary design,” this new release embodies “the Serpenti’s eternal spirit of transformation and reinvention,” acting as a stepping stone for the continued re-shaping of the serpent’s talismanic spirit, strength and the power it lends to multi-faceted accessories such as the new Serpentine Top Handle bag designed by female fashion designer, founder and entrepreneur, Geraldine Guyot.
by Ella O’Gorman