Bulgari Taps Linda Evangelista, Kim Ji-won, Isabella Rossellini for Bag Campaign

ROME — Bulgari has conscripted five personalities for its latest handbag campaign, promoting the new Bulgari Icons minaudière collection.

The jewelry house tapped supermodel Linda Evangelista, actors Kim Ji-won and Isabella Rossellini, as well as acclaimed author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and architect Sumayya Vally to feature in the campaign photographed by Ethan James Green and developed under the creative direction of Ferdinando Verderi.

Each of the talents is associated to one of the limited-edition minaudiere bags designed by Bulgari’s creative director of leather goods and accessories Mary Katrantzou.

Each talent is associated to a house emblem, with Evangelista paired to the Serpenti snake head-shaped bag; Ji-won to Divas’ Dream, which recalls the mosaics of the Baths of Caracalla with its shape and intricate jewel inlay; Rossellini to Monete, which recreates an ancient Roman coin; Ngozi Adichie to Bulgari Bulgari and its rich mother-of-pearl hand-intarsia construction, and Vally to Tubogas, where a metal snaking body wraps around an egg-shaped bag crafted from lizard.

“We did the matching ourselves, internally, connected to their identities, and the pairings worked,” Katrantzou told WWD on the set of the campaign. “For example, Linda was born on the year of the snake. She loves snakes. Apart her beauty being very connected to Serpenti, she’s more deeply connected to that symbol. Same with Isabella and her Italian lineage. She’s lived in Rome and Monete is probably the symbol most connected to Bulgari’s origins, so it felt right for her. When it came to Kim, Diva is very popular in Asia but also very feminine and delicate, so that felt very natural for her.”

The personalities also were asked to pen a miniature book exclusively for this limited-edition line and designed to fit the silhouette of each clutch.

The concept is an integral part of Katrantzou’s collection and her mission of celebrating women as custodians of knowledge and having them “carrying culture.” 

“Initially, the project was about just this idea of community around Bulgari bags and creating a connection with women but we had this concept of ‘carrying culture in your bag’ and we knew we wanted women to distill their wisdom in these mini-books, so it became about the power of their lived experience,” said Katrantzou about tapping diverse talents “that have shaped culture in a certain way through their life and work.”

Evangelista penned “Notes on Honoring Tradition,” sharing family anecdotes, cooking traditions and the recipe for her Sunday tomato sauce; Ji-won authored “Notes on Cultivating Inner Calm,” retracing ways to balance her career, strive for perfection and solutions to find inner peace; Rossellini wrote about her passion for animals in “Notes on Listening to Nature”; Ngozi Adichie centered “Notes on Creating Culture” on women’s role in culture, and Vally investigated the plurality of the idea of home and sense of belonging in “Notes on Finding Home.”

The Greek designer started to work on this project before officially joining the company in her current role in 2024. Inspired by Serpenti and how she had studied the symbol when she was collaborating with Bulgari, she deep-dove into the strongest icons of the house to bridge the gap between jewelry and accessories. 

“The design and geometry of the jewel itself defined the scale of the minaudière and it was at that point that I realized it would not be possible to fit a phone, if we were to truly respect the heritage, geometry, and materiality of the jewelry,” said Katrantzou.

A lot of technical challenges followed suit in the two-years-in-the-making collection, from mastering the right scale and proportions to fine-tuning the hand-applications, pavé settings and inlays of colored stones including amethyst, tiger’s eye, mother of pearl and malachite.