Gianni Bulgari has lived an extraordinary life. Scion of the Bulgari family, businessman, international socialite, confidant of Elizabeth Taylor and Gina Lollobrigida, kidnap survivor, pilot, racing driver, industrial designer, collector — and the creator of Bulgari Time. Mr. Gianni, the eldest grandson of Bulgari’s Greek founder, Sotirios Voulgaris (he Italianised his name to Sotirio Bulgari), does not give many interviews.
It’s an unseasonably warm January day when we meet in Rome. Mr. Gianni has invited me into his vast apartment in the hills above the Eternal City, and we’re sitting in a sort of receiving area, which feels more like the wing of a museum or gallery than a conventional sitting room. Among the columns and floor-to-ceiling windows is an eclectic mix of books, paintings, sculptures, marbles, bronzes, ceramics, vases and other ephemera, in an array of colours too numerous to count. I note we’re reclining in a pair of walnut-backed Art Deco armchairs that I recognise from a portrait taken of him perhaps 30 years ago. It’s a cornucopia of
