Photos: my favorite extraordinary Italian jewelry!

I ventured into the desert on a mission to discover The Extraordinary Italian Jewelry of Las Vegas jewelry week…now I’m home and I have glorious things to show you!!

It was so much fun working with the Italian Trade Agency (ITA). With their help making introductions, I was able to meet so many exciting new designers. Jewelry may be a universal language, but when you’re trying to say “Hello, may I please take pictures of your jewelry for my blog?” having someone on hand to translate is very helpful.

Enough talk! I know you want pictures.

The Extraordinary Italian Jewelry of Las Vegas Jewelry Week

This glorious statement cuff by Antonini Milano features delicious sapphires surrounded by small, sparkling diamonds set in black rhodium. The color contrast is just stunning.

I love the negative space between the gems, too; the peekaboo glimpses of skin that this sizable cuff allows make it a sexy as well as a joyful jewel.

I loved the fresh feeling of this versatile coral and hematite necklace by Rajola. Isn’t the color spectacular?

Rajola uses an unusual material called Sciacca coral: it’s actually a fossilized coral from a deposit that was discovered in the late 1800’s. The coral is hundreds of years old; part of a reef that was buried under an ancient volcanic eruption. That it means that Rajola’s coral doesn’t come from living reefs. No live coral or aquatic ecosystems are harmed by Sciacca coral jewelry.

I don’t have words to properly describe the simple perfection of these gold bracelets by Chimento. The seductive buttery yellow of the gold, the thoughtful design, the comfortable wear – the irresistible interplay of the different pieces’ colors and textures.

It’s not a stretch to say that you could buy one of these and wear it for your entire lifetime. Chimento makes some more dramatic pieces too – apparently J.Lo is a fan – but it was these perfect everyday go-to’s that I fell for the hardest. And who doesn’t love a good gold cuff, especially when you’re talking about extraordinary Italian jewelry?

I’m so into these layered jewels by Pesavento! They’re made from a core of tightly wound sterling silver mesh. They’re incredibly light and completely flexible; they could not be easier or more comfortable to wear.

I’ve actually seen the Pesavento booth at the VicenzaOro show in Italy, but they’re so mobbed there that I’d never been able to actually touch the jewelry! It was so exciting to finally try on the pieces I’d been eyeing.

Here’s a closer look:

I was delighted, as you can probably tell by the face I’m making.

This particular necklace is one of Pesavento’s high end showstoppers (you may have noticed it’s dripping in diamonds) but many of their pieces are accessibly priced and perfect for everyday. They’re nearly weightless and they move like liquid. Thanks to a cleverly designed magnetic clasp, Pesavento’s designs are also very easy to put on and take off.

The Spallanzani family has been making these bracelets since the 1960’s, when the current designer’s grandfather made one for her grandmother as a gift. Ever since then, it’s been family tradition to give each new mother in the family a cuff bearing the name of her baby. The bracelets are then passed along to the children on their 18th birthdays, to start their own collections.

It’s one thing to talk about how the history of Italian jewelry design leads to The Extraordinary Italian Jewelry of today, but it’s a whole other thing to hold the proof in your hand.

This stack shows the company’s non-personalized pieces: they still do a lot of business in name jewelry, but they also offer designs like these with endearments or phrases.

Butterflies! Or farfalla – that’s one of the few Italian words I know (thank you for that, pasta).

These earrings by Moraglione are so romantic and whimsical. I love how the little butterflies at the end are articulated so that they move along with the wearer. You can see that effect in the video of these beauties that I shared on my Instagram.

I fell in love with the glowing apple green of this ring from Gioielliamo!! It’s just so cute and happy and fun. And truly distinctive: the brand’s showcases literally stopped me in my tracks as I was walking along the aisle in JCK.

The brand uses many colors of these wonderful little gemstone orbs in their designs, from single spheres like this to rows of brightly colored beads stacked with gold.

Here’s another Sciacca coral necklace from Rajola, who we discussed above. The use of coral in Italian jewelry is a tradition that dates back to the days of ancient Rome, but when it’s styled like this it feels fully modern.

I love that the coral is left in little sticks instead of being polished into smooth elements. The color is eye-catching, but the texture is what makes this piece truly remarkable.

This is another design by Spallanzani. I love how they’ve taken the inspiration of their grandparents’ tradition of custom name bracelets by using the lettering to make necklaces with cheeky phrases like this one. (They actually have a wide selection of words and phrases, but this one was my favorite.)

This is a perfect example of what I was talking about in my first post on The Extraordinary Italian Jewelry: the past inspiring innovation in the present.

This ultralight bracelet by K di Kuore has a springy core that makes it flexible! This brand has a wide range of pieces in this vein: simple but interesting, stylish, and utterly wearable. Their designs are all gold, mostly with some kind of subtle diamond detail like what you see on this cuff.

So we’ve seen some spectacular gold bracelets (Chimento) and some amazing flexible jewelry (Pesavent0)…now here’s a piece that is both!

The Extraordinary Italian Jewelry that I saw in Las Vegas excelled in a lot of ways, but one of the most notable was wearability. That may not sound glamorous, but it’s honestly one of the most important qualities of a piece of jewelry. If you don’t like how it feels to wear a jewel, you won’t use it and you might as well not own it.

The Italian designers understand that what most jewelry lovers truly want is a jewel that feels good as well as looking good, a treasure that can be worn while embracing what life has to offer.

Here’s another stunner from Antonini Milano.

This is such a cool design that I don’t even know where to begin. The unusual concave surface of the pendant, the mosaic effect of the emeralds, the dark, twisted chain? This piece may seem simple, but it’s got a whole lot of innovative elements going on. Truly an example of Extraordinary Italian Jewelry.

The rings in this collection were killer, too. Well done, Antonini Milano!

A few Vegas photos from the ITA Instagram!

That’s all I’ve got for now! Keep an eye on my Instagram to see more of The Extraordinary Italian Jewelry and videos of some of the pieces here. Grazie to all of the lovely Italian brands who were kind enough to meet with me and a huge grazie to the Italian Trade Agency for choosing me for this project!! Special grazie also to the lovely Alessia Mather, who dedicated so much of her time to walking around Las Vegas with me.

Follow the Italian Trade Agency on Twitter and Instagram (also here and here) or check out their website for full more of The Extraordinary Italian Jewelry.

This sponsored post is brought to you by the Italian Trade Agency.