Bvlgari Revives Gold and Steel, Recasting Mixed Metals as Modern Luxury

That matters because Bvlgari is leaning on authority earned in the brand’s own history. The house says its genuine Italian style took shape from the 1940s onward, with yellow gold and the Serpenti motif at the center. In the 1970s, Bvlgari pushed further, mixing steel with gold, ceramic, porcelain and later aluminium, while the launch of the Bvlgari Bvlgari watch helped define a golden age for its advertising that stretched from the late 1970s into the early 1990s. The new Gold & Steel direction reads less like nostalgia than a return to the material experimentation that made the brand legible in the first place.

The most useful part of the revival is how practical it makes layering feel. B.zero1, born at the dawn of the new millennium and described by Bvlgari as a true icon since 1999, pairs 18 kt yellow gold with steel. Bvlgari also says the steel in its jewelry is a hypoallergenic alloy with nickel release within legal limits, a detail that makes the mixed-metal look easier to wear every day rather than save for special occasions. On the official site, a Tubogas Gold & Steel bracelet is listed at US$4,550, a B.zero1 Gold & Steel ring at C$2,710 in Canada, and a Serpenti Tubogas Gold & Steel watch at US$21,100 in the U.S., showing the idea moving from jewelry to higher-priced watchmaking without losing its core visual language.