Not all of us are lucky enough to be left our grandmother’s pearls, or her collection of cameo brooches. Nevertheless, there is evidence that a desire for heritage gems — whether bequeathed or bought — is gaining ground.

“We’ve certainly seen an increasing interest in jewellery buying,” says Joanna Hardy, director and senior specialist in the jewellery department at Sotheby’s London. “In our latest fine jewels sale, for example, our top 10 sales went to private buyers,” she says. Hardy draws a parallel between the new interest in vintage jewellery and our recent appetite for vintage fashion: both, she argues, offer choices for those in search of “items that are unique, or styles that actually date back to a different era, rather than merely being inspired by it”.

Of course, for jewellery brands it is vital to maintain a link to their own design history. Where would Chanel be without its continued association with Coco, even though she died more than 35 years ago? And why else would Asprey have spent so much time and money buying back pieces from its own past? Perhaps it’s little wonder that Bulgari, which is one of the only Italian names swimming in a sea of French fine jewellery houses, has announced that next June, in Rome, it will hold a retrospective of designs from its 125-year history.

The reason Bulgari can do this is because 10 years ago it hired Amanda Triossi, a jewellery historian, and gave her quite possibly one of the jammiest jobs ever: archivist for the firm. Each year, the chief executive, Francesco Trapani, gives her what he calls a “sizeable budget” and sends her shopping for old Bulgari pieces.

Triossi had already co-authored a book on Bulgari when she got the job and has since produced her own revised edition. So her passion for the brand is sincere rather than just about payroll. The house, she explains, “did something new and had the guts to design”. Its now eminently recognisable style, which started to surface in the 1960s, Triossi defines as “colour, no matter what; aesthetics that mix precious and so-called semi-precious materials; and boldness”.

“Jewellery is a form of art,” she says, “and therefore it should be treated with due respect.” And she feels her work is important for another reason: before she came on board at Bulgari, there was no archive. “The company realised that to look to the future, it had to preserve the past, to understand the past better.”

It’s thanks to Triossi’s acquisitions (mainly via private sales rather than at auction) that the likes of Keira Knightley and Jennifer Aniston can borrow vintage Bulgari rocks to wear on the red carpet. It’s also the reason why we can now glimpse archive pieces such as the 1970s hexagonal pendant featuring a central emerald of 330 carats, pictured overleaf. Or the platinum, sapphire and diamond necklace from 1955. And one of the first pieces in which the house incorporated antique Roman coins: a choker-style necklace in two shades of 18-carat gold from circa 1970.

Richard Burton once said of Elizabeth Taylor, whom he twice made his wife: “The only word Elizabeth knows in Italian is Bulgari.” Again, we should be so lucky.

Between Eternity and History, a Bulgari retrospective exhibition at Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, opens June 4, 2009

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