Pomellato Pom Pom
Pomellato Pom Pom
The clustered-sphere collection that translates textile pompoms into 18-karat goldsmithing
Pom Pom is the Pomellato collection built around clustered spherical elements rendered in 18-karat gold, often pavé-set with diamonds or coloured gemstones. The defining motif borrows directly from the textile pompom: multiple rounded forms grouped to create volume and tactile texture. Pieces are produced in rose, yellow, and white gold, and the collection extends across rings, earrings, and pendants. The Pom Pom vocabulary sits alongside the house's other sculptural lines as an exercise in playful, three-dimensional goldsmithing.
Design language
The collection's spheres are not solid balls but hollow-cast 18-karat gold orbs, polished or pavé-set on the visible faces, then assembled into clusters that articulate slightly with movement. Each piece reads as a controlled accumulation rather than a rigid shape: the spheres shift just enough against one another to catch light differently as the wearer moves. The textile reference is overt — Pomellato's design culture has consistently drawn on Italian textile and fashion vocabulary — and the collection sits in a wider tradition of Italian goldwork that translates fabric and trim into precious-metal architecture.
Pavé Pom Pom pieces use small round brilliant diamonds, typically D–F colour and VS clarity, hand-set into milled seats across the visible hemisphere of each sphere. Coloured-stone variants apply the same construction with brown diamonds, sapphire, ruby, or tsavorite to recolour the cluster. The house's signature use of brown diamonds appears throughout selected Pom Pom editions, in keeping with Pomellato's broader history of championing the species in mainstream high jewellery.
Construction
Each sphere is cast hollow in 18-karat gold to keep wearable weight under control while retaining visual mass. The spheres are then individually polished and pavé-set before being assembled into the final cluster. Assembly is mechanical rather than glued — the spheres connect through internal posts and rivets so that the construction can be serviced and individual elements replaced if a sphere is damaged. The hollow construction demands the same handling care as the broader Pomellato line: dented spheres should be addressed by a workshop familiar with the marque rather than re-formed at a non-specialist bench.
Position within the house
Pomellato was founded in Milan in 1967 and the Pom Pom collection sits within the house's broader sculptural vocabulary alongside Iconica, Ritratto, M'ama Non M'ama, and Sabbia. Where Nudo distils a piece down to a single naked stone, Pom Pom moves in the opposite direction — multiple elements, accumulated texture, and decorative intent foregrounded over reduction. The collection is most often worn as a statement earring or cocktail ring, less frequently in pendant form, where the volume of the cluster reads strongly against simple necklines.
In the trade
Pom Pom pieces appear in the secondary market with some regularity, most often as earrings. The condition examination focuses on three points: the polish of the visible spheres, the security of the pavé in surface seats, and the integrity of the internal connections that hold the cluster together. A Pom Pom earring with a loose sphere or a missing pavé stone is a workshop case; a Pom Pom in original polish with all stones intact and the original Pomellato pouch trades at a notable premium.
For a client wardrobe, Pom Pom is a textural piece — best worn against simple clothing where the cluster volume can be read. It does not layer easily with other house collections in the way that Iconica does, and is most often acquired as a singular statement object rather than as part of a stacking sequence.
Care
Cleaning is by mild soap and warm water with a soft brush, paying attention to the recesses between spheres where lotion and skin oil collect. Ultrasonic cleaning should be avoided for pavé Pom Pom pieces, where vibration can loosen surface stones over time. Storage should be in individual pouches to prevent the polished spheres from marking neighbouring pieces in a jewellery box.