Brilliant! | The Futures of Italian Jewellery

From prehistory to the twentieth century, jewellery has followed a linear, sequential and deductive path, punctuated by precious materials and social symbolism. The timeline of contemporary jewellery has fragmented into multiple reflections of often divergent values and contexts, sitting precariously between the eternal of precious tradition and the ephemeral of fashion. This present fragmentary nature opens up windows on the futures of jewellery: the fine jewels of Admirable Manufacture, the elegance of Everyday Beauty, the artistic experiments of Avant Craft, the interactive jewellery of Precious Technology and the challenges of 3D printing of Collective Creativity. These are the masterpieces of Italian jewellery, admired the world over, and here they become exempla to be handed down to future generations in a pluralism of languages that intersects jewellery with art, design, fashion and new technologies. The protagonist is the necklace, the most representative and beautiful facet of Italian jewellery.

The volume Brilliant! The Futures of Italian Jewellery, edited by Alba Cappelieri, accompanies the XXI International Exhibition of the Triennale in Milan.