Bulgari’s Mireia Lopez Montoya on creating in-demand accessories.
Handbags are serious business. Sure, they can be — and often are — disregarded as a frivolous, superfluous fashion accessory, but for luxury brands, they have the power to be highly lucrative appendages: the value of the luxury handbag market is expected
Which is what makes Mireia Lopez Montoya’s role at Bulgari so pressing. The brand’s managing director of leather goods and accessories was born in Barcelona but moved to Italy 30 years ago, and spent 15 years working in fast moving consumer goods, at Procter & Gamble then Coca-Cola, before joining Bulgari in 2014. Now, she oversees the creation of the brand’s handbags, which are quickly vying to be as much a part of the brand’s identity as its spectacular jewels.
“We look at our jewellery as a source of inspiration for the handbags, as well as the archives and the brand’s heritage as well — a lot of ideas come from that,” says Lopez Montoya. “We really try to bring in our jewellery creations as much as we can, whether it’s colour, craftsmanship and the symbols of the brand, while interpreting them in a unique way.”
That includes incorporating the house’s beguiling Serpenti motif, which it first introduced in 1948 in a bracelet-watch that coiled around the wrist, and was later famously worn by Elizabeth Taylor on the set of Cleopatra and championed by formidable Vogue editor Diana Vreeland.
Today, the snake’s head is a key — and instantly recognisable — feature of Bulgari’s handbags, while other designs include a whole serpent slithering along a clutch, or a chain made to look like scales. “You will always recognise the symbols from Bulgari in our handbags, whether that is the Serpenti, or the chains — there is always a connection with our jewels,” adds Lopez Montoya. “There are so many brands making beautiful leather goods; the way we stand apart from them is the way we approach colour, the way we interpret the symbols of the brand and our craftsmanship as well.”
The snake motif is also central to Bulgari’s collaborative venture, Serpenti Through the Eyes Of, which sees emerging designers reinterpret the brand’s handbags. “That’s a project that I’m really proud of, because it was an idea that came from my heart,” says Lopez Montoya. “Each has been very different from the other, with very different visions.”
The first was with British footwear designer Nicholas Kirkwood, in 2017, who created punk-inflected backpacks and flap-bags with enamel studs and metallic hardware. “Nicholas was so creative, and he had a lot of ideas and words in his own creative process that chimed with us, in his architectural approach and his use of unexpected materials and shapes.”
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Advertise with NZME.Other collaborators include Japanese designer Yoon Ahn of Ambush, who envisioned the snake coiled into a heart shape, and French-Moroccan designer Charaf Tajer of Casablanca, who was inspired by Roman tiles and tennis in equal measure.
Greek designer Mary Katrantzou, who released her first collection under the project in 2021, is back again this year with a range of embroidered Serpenti Metamorphosis bags, in a nod to the couture techniques employed in her fashion line.
“Mary was perfect to create a very elevated project. She’s Greek, like our founder, she’s a joy of life, a volcano of ideas, a beautiful mind, a beautiful person. She is maybe the closest to the brand in terms of personality.” Adds Lopez Montoya: “It’s a really exciting learning opportunity for us on one hand, but also for the designers, a beautiful opportunity that they get a lot of visibility out of.”
Each of the collaborations has been limited edition, and each has sold out. Evidence that Lopez Montoya is well-versed in creating hits. So what’s the recipe for creating a best-selling handbag?
“It’s a combination of things — definitely, beautiful design that is right on the trend of the time, whether it’s maximalist or minimalist or it expresses something about the brand in that moment. And then communication. Sometimes it’s a matter of who starts to wear them, which is sometimes organic, or because some brands have the means to put the bags in the hands of the people who everybody is looking at. But even with that, it’s not guaranteed. It has to be the right product, the right time, the right people. And a little bit of luck.”
