Nudo CollectionBy Pomellato
Pomellato’s 2001 Nudo collection, which includes earrings, the Nudo ring and Nudo necklaces, aligns neatly with founder Pino Rabolini’s challenge to the notion that fine jewelry should be reserved for special occasions and formal events.
When he founded Pomellato in 1967, Italian jewelry designer Rabolini endeavored to create pieces for women to wear everyday. The son of a goldsmith, Rabolini was inspired by fashion and furniture designer Pierre Cardin’s innovative style and dedication to ready-to-wear. The jeweler’s fashion-forward Milan-based house became known for its bold use of a diverse range of colored gemstones and unconventional designs — a reprise of the brand’s Nuvola collection showcases brown diamonds, for example.
While some haute jewelry houses designed their pieces specifically for society’s wealthiest set, the Nudo collection of rounded square-cut colored gems set in gold was designed to be worn daily, no matter the occasion. Its very name, which means “nude” in Italian, emphasizes the simple and unadorned style of the pieces. For Pomellato, even as there are some variations of the Nudo ring that see its band encrusted with diamonds, nothing gets in the way of what the house calls the “naked splendor” of the colored gemstone: It’s front and center, free of prongs or any unnecessary embellishment. Similarly, the main attraction of the otherwise spare Nudo Lariat necklace is a stone doublet — variations include blue topaz paired with chrysoprase or mother-of-pearl. With the charismatic collection, Rabolini also ventured into relatively uncharted territory when it came to gems, sourcing rose quartz, blue topaz and obsidian, among others.
Rabolini lived to see his Nudo collection attain cult status, and iterations of Nudo pieces have been added accordingly since the line’s launch, each reliably garnering acclaim among the jewelry’s legions of fans.
