The Story Behind Dua Lipa’s Bulgari Bridal Jewelry
The singer said “I do” to one of the most iconic jewelry motifs of all time on her wedding day.
Reported by Vogue.
Something borrowed, something ancient, something undeniably Bulgari. When Dua Lipa stepped out of Old Marylebone Town Hall on May 31 as Callum Turner's wife — ceremony intimate, guest list tight, Schiaparelli Haute Couture tailored to the throat — the jewelry she chose wasn't incidental. It was a thesis statement.
Coiled at her neck was a high jewelry Bulgari Serpenti necklace: pink gold, diamonds, and a snake's head resting at the décolletage. The bridal moodboard, according to Vogue, pulled from Bianca Jagger's 1971 Saint-Tropez courthouse moment — white suit, wide hat, zero apology — and the snake motif completed a look that felt less like "wedding" and more like the beginning of a very good era. The Schiaparelli gold hardware and the Serpenti's glinting scales weren't competing; they were conspiring.
A Snake With 5,000 Years of Receipts
The Serpenti design entered Bulgari's canon in 1948 as a coiled Tubogas gold watch, but snake jewelry itself predates the brand by millennia — the motif stretches back roughly 5,000 years to ancient Egypt, resurfaces in the Victorian era, and landed on Queen Victoria's own finger in 1839 via an 18-karat gold serpent ring Prince Albert designed himself. The modern iteration's definitive moment came in 1960s Rome, when Elizabeth Taylor wore an elaborate Serpenti watch on the set of Cleopatra — the same production during which she and Richard Burton apparently ducked into Bulgari's Via Condotti VIP room to hide from paparazzi mid-affair. If any jewelry can claim a love story, it's this one. Diana Vreeland wore a 30-inch version around her waist. Zendaya, Bella Hadid, and Susan Sarandon have all done their part on the red carpet.
Lipa, named a Bulgari global ambassador in February, has been building to this. A Serpenti necklace anchored her look at Cannes alongside Jean Paul Gaultier; another appeared at an Elton John AIDS Foundation event in March over shredded electric-blue Gucci. The wedding piece wasn't a deviation — it was the culmination of a very deliberate relationship with a single motif.
In a culture that treats bridal jewelry as something borrowed and soon forgotten, Lipa made the serpent feel like a declaration: the most iconic brides don't accessorize to match — they accessorize to mean something.
Read the original at Vogue.
