There is much to love about the Milanese jewelry brand Pomellato. My personal adoration for the brand began the second I laid eyes on the thick gold chain necklaces in the Iconica collection, but the history of Pomellato is what drew me in even closer. Founded in Milan in 1967 by Pino Rabolini, the heir to his family’s goldsmithing legacy, Pomellato prides itself on being a keeper of strong Milanese goldsmithing traditions. Collections are handmade in the atelier located at the headquarters in Milan where over 100 goldsmiths are housed. While recently in Milan, I got the chance to tour that very atelier and chat with the brand’s creative director, Vincenzo Castaldo, about his personal history with Pomellato, recent collections, and the brand identity so many Milanese women hold near and dear to their hearts.
Castaldo is one of those people who immediately changes the energy of a room the second they walk in. He greeted me with a warm smile and welcomed me into his office (that I had to restrain myself from gushing over). The walls were filled with his inspirations, sketches, campaigns, and art in addition to moldings of jewelry he and his design team were currently working on. Once we dove into the conversation, it was clear Castaldo is as in love with Pomellato as he’s ever been. His eyes glitter when he speaks about his customers, his team, and most of all, the legacy he is now fully engrained in.
Ahead, you’ll learn more about Pomellato’s history and what makes the brand such an institution in Milan and beyond, and feast your eyes on the latest collection that Castaldo is particularly fond of.
What was your first memory of Pomellato before you began working here?
I was working in fashion at the time and so I used to see Vogue Italia every month because it was our Bible. It was at the beginning of the ’90s when I started in the fashion industry and I remember an editorial shot by Michel Comte with Catherine Deneuve in New York, on the terrace of the Peninsula, I think. I was really bewitched by this picture of these jewels because they were so powerful and very attractive to my eye. I went to see who the jewels were by and they were by Pomellato. This was the really first contact that I had with this brand. Now I have this picture in my house because it was a gift from our last creative director.
Almost 12 years after, I was in contact with the creative director and he was looking for someone that could be his right hand or that could be someone that was close to him to absorb the DNA of the brand. He was looking for someone that works in fashion because that’s really important for the creative approach at that time the people that worked in jewelry were very conservative. Now after 20 years, the environmental situation has totally changed. But if you go back and you think 20 years ago, the people that used to work in that jewelry field, were very conservative and very traditional.
What does a typical day look like for you as the creative director of Pomellato?
Well, every day changes because I don’t have a rigid agenda. Like today, I have the pleasure to meet you, and obviously, most part of the week, I work with my team. I have a creative team that works every day on different creative flows. Then we have our atelier. The atelier makes Pomellato really unique because we are so lucky that we can start with a project and after a couple of days we can see the first prototypes that help us to understand if we are in the right direction or not. Quick feedback from our atelier is really important because gives us a kind of 360 perception of the product.
The day also depends on the projects we are working on. Over the last three months before summer was La Gioia. Everybody focused on the high jewelry collection because we had to present in Paris at the beginning of July, so we were totally focused on La Gioia. Then there is the core collection, our fine jewelry collection. Then we have special requests for our clients, so we create some special one-of-a-kind pieces for them. So there is always something that we are cooking in the kitchen.
Can you tell me about some of your favorite Pomellato collections that you’ve worked on over the years?
One of my favorite collections, because I have a kind of sentimental bond with it, is Iconica. Iconica represents a very important step for Pomellato because we wanted to create something that could be a kind of contemporary interpretation of our heritage in the goldsmith tradition. It had to be simple, sensual, and a little bit exuberant. Iconica is an endless source of inspiration because we’re still working on Iconica, even for the next collection because it’s so simple but it’s very us. So we totally see ourselves in this chain, in this volume, even in this minimalism, because it’s not baroque, it’s simple.
How do you find the balance of maintaining the brand consistency of Pomellato while still evolving it at the same time?
Well, Pomellato has a very strong identity, and that was the first lesson that I learned when I arrived. You can explore, you can stretch, but it’s difficult to feel lost. And so sometimes you have to push boundaries and maybe go towards another expression, but my team, we immediately recognize if it’s not Pomellato. Pomellato is a brand that is so clear to me. I think that even if we have to evolve the aesthetic part of the brand in every collection, we will never betray the brand. Pomellato is beautiful calligraphy in that you can write a different story without changing the style.
To you, who is the ideal Pomellato customer? What kind of woman inspires you while you’re creating?
I would say women who are not looking for something status, but more emotion. They have to create a sentimental relationship with the jewels, and they are women who appreciate details so they pay attention to every single part of the jewel. They also have a playfulness about them that is not taken for something childish, but more an interest in how they can wear pieces in different ways which is very true to the brand of Pomellato.
I want to know more about La Gioia. Can you share some of your design concepts behind the collection, and what would you want our readers to also know about it?
For us, La Gioia was a project that gave us no boundaries and a lot of freedom because we could create what we dreamt of and amplify the aesthetic code of the brand. We could really push the limits. This collection was inspired by nature, what nature evokes in you deep inside. We wanted to create something to connect with this emotion, but it doesn’t represent exactly what you are seeing in reality now. We had to remain in the Pomellato language and style, and that means these pieces also had to be wearable during the day. This creates the kind of jewelry collection that you can wear with a white shirt, not only with red carpet attire. This is the ultimate expression of the brand.
What were some of your favorite stones to work with within the collection?
Grey spinel. It’s my obsession. I love grey spinel. I can’t tell you why, but it’s a stone that really amazes me. It has different nuances, and different colors, they start from gray, and go through violet, purple, and sometimes even a touch of blue. So in spinel, you have a rainbow. Spinel, in a certain way, reminds me of Milanese elegance, which is very understated but it’s truly precious. That’s why the color is so sophisticated. That’s why we used it in La Gioia, in the summer storm chapter.
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