Small Bags With Big Ambitions
Imagine a bag so singular it refuses to make room for your iPhone, but happily accommodates a miniature book. For Bulgari’s creative director Mary Katrantzou, that is a very intentional proposition. In an age when the phone has become our memory, map, diary, and most reliable distraction, Katrantzou has created a series of minaudières, part of the Bulgari Icons project, that offer a polite but pointed refusal. Their diminutive scale is not a flaw but a philosophy: utility is gently dethroned, while meaning takes its place. If your phone won’t fit, then what can you carry? “Culture,” replied Katrantzou.
A small book replaces the screen; thoughts replace the feed. For Katrantzou, the minaudière becomes less a handbag than a declaration that insists on presence, intention, and the rare luxury of being briefly unreachable. In today’s hyperconnected world, that may be its most radical feature. The design gesture invites curiosity, and, inevitably, debate. “The five Bulgari Icons minaudières operate almost like talismans,” said Katrantzou. “They hold an idea rather than an excess. They ask us to imagine luxury not as accumulation, but as intention, and to consider that what we choose to carry can reflect not only our style, but our values.”
The project includes an advertising campaign shot by Ethan James Green under the artistic direction of Ferdinando Verderi, and features five formidable women: Isabella Rossellini, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Linda Evangelista, Sumayya Vally, and Kim Ji-won. Each is paired with a minaudière containing a bespoke miniature book, hand-bound to mirror the bag’s shape and written by the woman who carries it.
Called ‘Notes On,’ the diminutive tomes feature personal reflections shaped by curiosity, heritage, and self-understanding. With Rossellini, the series begins in the animal kingdom, examining its wisdom and mystery and exploring how a lifelong fascination with animal behavior can deepen our understanding of the world we share. It then turns to Evangelista, whose contribution is a personal ode to strength and resilience, framed through her Italian heritage and the power of tradition.
With architect Vally, ‘Notes On’ becomes a meditation on home as a fluid, plural space, an architecture formed through memory, belonging, and meaning rather than fixed boundaries. Author Ngozi Adichie expands the reflection to culture itself, considering its resonance, our role in shaping it, and the power of women as its keepers and conveyors of stories across generations. Finally, actress Ji-won brings the series inward, offering a thoughtful exploration of inner peace and self-acceptance, and reflecting on the balance between perfection and presence.
Together, these voices form a narrative about observation and inheritance, resilience and belonging, and the ways we come to understand ourselves and the worlds we inhabit. Each of the five minaudière carries a symbolism steeped in history, a sort of conversation across time, where the present flirts with history. Monete reinvents an ancient Roman coin, now cloaked in precious enamel. Tubogas slithers into the spotlight, its metal coils wrapping around a jewel-like ‘egg’ of lizard skin, a nod to nature. Divas’ Dream channels the grandeur of the Baths of Caracalla, translating ancient mosaics into a dazzling jewel inlay. BVLGARI BVLGARI steps into modernity with a sleek cylindrical minaudière, hand-inlaid with Mother of Pearl. The Serpenti sheds its body to become a stand-alone piece that hisses sophistication, with the serpent being “a symbol of transformation evolving across time,” said Katrantzou.
The designer emphasized that cultural symbolism is central to the Bulgari minaudières project, with each bag rooted in Greek, Italian, and Roman cultural formation, “carrying the history of its origin,” she said. “I believe these references do not need to be explained for their heritage to be felt. Their power lies in their evolution. This balance between patrimony and innovation defines Bulgari’s strength, where today’s innovation becomes tomorrow’s heritage.”
