Marina B — The Bulgari Granddaughter Who Built the 1980s Architectural Idiom
Marina B — The Bulgari Granddaughter Who Built the 1980s Architectural Idiom
Cardan-set rotating stones, Mei modular jewellery, and a sculptural body of work
Marina B is the Geneva-based jewellery house founded in 1978 by Marina Bulgari, granddaughter of the Bulgari founder Sotirio Bulgari and daughter of Costantino Bulgari. After leaving the family firm in the late 1970s following corporate disagreements, Marina established her own house under her given name and built across the 1980s and 1990s one of the most recognisable bodies of work in late-20th-century European jewellery — distinguished by bold architectural composition, deliberately oversized cabochon and faceted coloured stones, and proprietary settings (notably the Cardan rotating mount) that have become signatures of the maison.
Foundation
Marina Bulgari was born in 1930. After working at the family firm in Rome and Milan, she founded Marina B in Geneva in 1978 and moved the business to Switzerland to operate independently of the Bulgari name. The early Marina B work shares some of Bulgari's design vocabulary — bold cabochons, geometric forms, the cabochon-and-mosaic approach — but pushes harder on architectural construction and on technical innovation in setting.
The Cardan setting
The signature technical contribution is the Cardan setting, a hinged rotating mount in which a faceted gemstone is supported by an axial pivot (named for the universal joint of Gerolamo Cardano) and rotates 360 degrees within its frame. The wearer can spin the stone to display either face or to select between contrasting stones in two-stone configurations. The mount is a piece of mechanical jewellery in the literal sense — moving parts engineered to a tolerance — and it became the recognisable Marina B feature on rings, pendants, and earrings throughout the 1980s. Cardan-set pieces continue to appear in the maison's current production and at auction, where Cardan provenance commands premium.
The Mei collection
The second major signature is the Mei collection — a modular system of interchangeable gem-set elements that clip together to form rings, bracelets, and necklaces. The wearer can assemble different combinations of stones and gold elements depending on occasion. The name Mei is a contraction of the Italian miei (mine) and refers to the personal-customisation premise of the line. Mei pieces have been in continuous production since the early 1980s.
Design language
Marina B's wider design vocabulary draws on architectural composition, with the gold worked into geometric forms — pyramids, prisms, cylinders, and chevrons — that frame oversized cabochons of coloured stones (sapphires, rubies, emeralds, tourmalines, citrines, and onyx) in graduated and contrasting compositions. The work is recognisably 1980s in idiom — bold, sculptural, large in scale — but with a level of technical engineering and finish that distinguishes it from the broader 1980s commercial output.
Ownership and continuity
Marina Bulgari sold the maison in 1991 to a Swiss luxury group; subsequent ownership has changed hands several times. The brand was acquired by Damien Coquet, the great-nephew of Marina Bulgari, in 2012, and contemporary production continues under his direction with archive references and new designs informed by the original vocabulary. The maison operates from boutiques in Geneva, New York, and Aspen, with international distribution through select stockists.
Position in the market
Marina B occupies a clear position in the contemporary fine jewellery market: late-20th-century European architectural jewellery, with proprietary settings, large coloured stones, and a recognisable design vocabulary that has not been imitated successfully by other houses. Original Marina Bulgari-era pieces from the 1980s and 1990s appear regularly at auction and trade in the four- to six-figure range depending on size and configuration. Cardan-set pieces and major Mei compositions reach higher prices.
In the trade
For dealers handling Marina B in the secondary market, the relevant identification points are the maison hallmark (typically Marina B with the year of production), the gold karat (most production is in 18-karat yellow or rose gold), and the design vocabulary — particularly the Cardan rotating settings and the Mei modular elements. The maison's archive in Geneva is the standard reference for attribution and dating.