THE PUNK SOUL OF GEMSTONES

I’ve always preferred alternative routes and even if it takes me longer to reach my destination, I like taking secondary roads, they give me a better idea of where I am. I feel the same way about communications – I like to take the road less traveled and that’s why I’ve decided to tell the Roberto Coin story through the people who work there.

These are the people I see every day, the people I share research, ideas and solutions with. They are evidence of Mr. Coin’s ingeniousness in putting together a group of people who are creative both professionally and personally with just the right doses of extravagance and glamour.

One of these people is Valeria Rossini, the young woman who is responsible for Roberto Coin’s gemstone department. She manages it together with Colleen Lopresti, an expert whose unsurpassed knowledge has guided the department for years and who is also my favorite “Yankee transplanted in Vicenza”.

Valeria Rossini is passionate, eclectic and just messy enough to earn a place of honor in the chaotic world of truly creative people – people who even make the space around them creative, dropping their coats and bags wherever they may fall and forgetting other worldly possessions, regardless of what they may be worth. That said, she is also an impeccable gemologist, an independent designer and, as I have decided to define her, a manual laborer of jewelry, because, if she can, she’s always willing to get her hands dirty to construct something of value. The myriad of activities that make up her day wouldn’t fit into this article so I’ve chosen three of them to represent her:

1.           Order management: Valeria has a very precious shopping list where, with mathematical precision, she writes down the stones that must be bought for the brand’s future collections. The highly selected stones on the list respect a series of well-defined criteria in terms of both quality and ethics. No stone that comes into Roberto Coin’s world comes from a conflict zone. Each stone bears a virtuous beauty and its story is as clear as the light it reflects. Finding the items on her list is no easy task, so her work is complicated and doesn’t allow for any waste or costly errors. 

2.           Prototyping: I’ve already said that Valeria is a manual laborer of jewelry but in this context, her job is to make the dreams of others come true, to give a defined shape to specific creations just as the couturiers in the world of high fashion do. The difference is that she uses a magnifying glass instead of a needle and thread. When a client asks for a one-of-a-kind piece where the stone is the focal point in the design, Valeria is there. She told me “listening is the starting point that is fundamental to the success of the creative process.” For example, it is important to know if the client is buying a piece of jewelry to wear or as an investment. In the first case, the stone is chosen according to aesthetic criteria in terms of color and proportions since the client’s desire is for a personal piece of jewelry to keep with her, to keep on her skin. In the second case, the choice depends more on other criteria such as purity, caliber and origin (Valeria explained that an emerald from Columbia, for example, is considered more precious than others due to its rarity and purity). In both cases, empathy and a lot of research are the gears that move the process along and Valeria doesn’t just know these gears, she likes them!

3.          The search for the Lords of the Stones: the third responsibility on the schedule of the gemstone department head is the search for new stones and, therefore, new suppliers. A large part of the stone market is Indian for purely geological and geographical reasons. In fact, many of the most productive mines in the world are located in India and Africa. Contrary to what you might think, there’s nothing very romantic on a first date with gemstones. The conversation is limited to technical talk about criteria for measuring quality, care, size, conservation, guarantee and timing – in other words, numbers. It’s only when you have the stone in your hands and you can inspect it closely that everything goes quiet and the poetry begins. 

I soon found out that the part of her work that involved negotiation and numbers was Valeria’s least favorite and at the same time, I found out what it was she liked the best. She likes to listen to people and create FOR THEM, find THEIR STONES, work with the emotional aspect of the jewels and discover what she can make together with the artisans, because jewels are made with your hands. She confessed that when someone brings in jewelry to repair, she’s happy if the piece is in bad shape. If the rhodium plating is scratched and the stone is full of marks, the jewel has had the honor of being worn a lot and having lived a full life. That Valeria manages to feel happy for the stones reconfirms what jewelry means to her. Each piece is an object that inspires a special bond, that has specific and precious meaning and from which the owner never wants to be separated. 

Today, she is working with Colleen on the redefinition of the Cento line, the line of Roberto Coin diamonds that are cut with 100 facets rather than the classical 57 or 58 (why accept something ordinary if you can have something exceptional!). Their goal is to bring a note of freshness and innovation to a jewel that is culturally very classic like the solitaire ring or the Riviera diamond ring. And the goal perfectly reflects the brand’s mission to offer women jewelry that is distinct and unique because being original is an art form that takes on precious value here. I found her bent over diamonds and gold threads, smiling like a child who just received a new box of LEGOs to construct. The thought that she will approach the same creative process with Mr. Coin touches me. I can imagine them, two enthusiasts from different eras, who don’t see time limits; they see only the opportunity to create something new. I’ll have to wait for the Basel trade fair at the end of March to see all of their results with the Cento line but from the little glimpses I’ve seen, it looks sensational. This year, Generation Z is going to fall in love with the jewelry’s great classics and renew the future.

 I had one final question for Valeria, it was predictable but I couldn’t help asking: Which stone is your favorite? Her answer confirmed her mystical, ingenuous and slightly punk essence – her favorite is AZURITE, for three very specific reasons:

1.       Its color, which is called Blue Klein, is so dense that it makes the azurite appear to be a block of pure, extremely intense color – a chromatic explosion that I admit, had me hypnotized for an instant.

2.       Its physical structure makes every stone look like a veritable little cartoon cloud; she doesn’t need to explain why she likes this contrast…

3.       It comes from North Africa, the place that more than any other, inspires Valeria and that she goes back to every chance she gets. As she’s talking to me, she shows me Yves Saint Laurent’s house in Marrakesh, and, incredibly, it’s exactly the same color – THE AZURITE HOUSE!

Valeria also has her own brand that I hope, one day soon, to see all over the world. In the meantime, I’ll be happy to see it displayed at the Autor, the international contemporary jewelry fair in Bucharest at the end of April. She’s a sorceress that can deal the tarot cards with fluid mystery, she takes simply beautiful photos and she’s generous in such a genuine way that it moves me a little. 

#RobertoCoin #storytelling #creativity