Wow Effect: Exploring the Inventive Artistry of Serafino Consoli

While doing my duties as a judge at the 2025 Inhorgenta Awards, I had the pleasure of being introduced to the team behind Serafino Consoli – an Italian brand with a unique claim to fame in the high jewellery world. Unsurprisingly, its innovative multi-sized ‘Grande Bellezza’ ring secured the prestigious High Jewellery of the Year accolade, making me even more determined to find out more about the company, its craftsmanship and the world invention patent that makes its ingenious concept entirely unique. Let’s dive deeper before Serafino Consoli makes its mark at the Couture show in Las Vegas from June 4-8, 2025.

New ideas and inspirations appear almost constantly in the sparkling world of jewellery, but rarely do we witness genuine ingenuity and innovation, especially in the form of handcraftsmanship. After all, pioneering a new method of making a piece, building its constituent parts and moulding them together isn’t easy and can take master craftspeople years, if not decades, to truly perfect. When I was first introduced to Serafino Consoli during the Inhorgenta Awards judging process, I will admit I spent some time simply playing with its Grande Bellezza ring, which can widen, narrow and expand to be worn in different ways. It’s a remarkable feat of engineering, now with pride of place in the Brevetto collection, that really creates a ‘wow’ effect when viewed in person.

To explain this innovation properly, we need to go back to the beginning. The eponymous Serafino Consoli started his business in the late 1950s with a small provincial jewellery shop, specialising in Italian goldsmithing and watchmaking. After a long period of steady growth, a turning point came with the arrival of Serafino’s son, Ivan Consoli, who elevated the company’s success in the early 2000s and put its small boutique in Grumello del Monte, in the province of Bergamo, Lombardy, on the map. Around this time, Ivan nurtured the seed of a surprising new goldsmithing technique, allowing a ring to widen to become a bracelet and then easily revert back to its original size. By 2013, Italian craftsmanship had perfected this innovation, registered the patents for a multi-size ring and bracelet-ring, and was ready to launch into the international market. As such, a new era in the Serafino Consoli business officially began.

What I like about Serafino Consoli is the great mix of old and new, traditional and inventive. On the one hand, its jewels are produced in the cradle of Italian craftsmanship, Valenza, which is world-renowned for producing some of the best gold jewellery in the world. Yet, on the other hand, it has demonstrated daring thinking with its never-before-seen concept that’s protected by a world invention patent. This legal formality acknowledges a specific mode of construction, incorporating thousands of welding points and hundreds of components, which allow a network of moving parts to expand and contract easily and withstand the tests of time. As such, Serafino Consoli can claim to be the only brand in the world able to create a ring that becomes a bracelet.

This ingenuity is now channelled into two collections – Serafino and Brevetto – that use the same kinetic properties but in slightly different ways. The former is where we can see this ring-to-bracelet magic, whereby hundreds of 18k gold components expand, contract and slide into place to transform a multi-row diamond ring into an elegant openwork, lattice-like bracelet. There are several Serafino varieties – for example, five-rows and seven-rows – meaning we can see this many individual lines of gemstones and golden accents when a piece is compressed into its ring form. As this shape expands, it forms a slightly thinner or thicker bracelet, depending on the wearer’s personal preferences. Elsewhere, the Serafino collection contains two further chapters, Alternate and Serafino 1492, which play with the placement of diamonds, coloured gemstones or the shape of precious metal components to create varying looks. Personally, I think there’s something magical about being able to ‘open’ a ring and wear it as a bracelet, depending on my mood or chosen outfit. It’s that irreplaceable ‘wow factor’ that Serafino Consoli is tapping into with great effect.

The “Brevetto Collection” is slightly different in that it takes the idea of ‘multi-size’ and expands upon it with a flexible, variable structure. Here, we find rings, earrings, pendants and bracelets that can change dimensions, such as a ring contracting to fit the pinky finger or a bracelet that can expand for the wrist and the upper arm. What you notice about these pieces is how supple they are; they don’t just grow and shrink but adapt to the contours of the body in a tactile and ergonomic way. Serafino Consoli describes them as “an ode to the beauty of change”, but also highlights how they can be shared and enjoyed by friends or members of the family, thanks to their adaptability. Despite having different finger sizes, a Brevetto ring can be worn by a grandmother, her daughter, her granddaughter and so on. It’s a really lovely and romantic notion, don’t you think?

Highlights from this range include two new lines, Bellezza and Grande Belleza. Serafino Consoli has succeeded in taking the concept of multi-size rings to even higher levels of refinement, creating not only jewellery pieces that can be extended or compressed but also introducing a radical development in shape. In the Bellezza range, rows of precious gemstones get progressively larger from the lower to the upper parts of the ring. In the Grande Bellezza range, which is what secured the Inhorgenta Award back in February, a gradient is achieved by steadily increasing the carat weight. The results are exceptional jewellery pieces with an unmistakable beauty. They enhance the ‘wow’ effect by expanding and contracting, allowing the shape and gemstone carat to appear in a state of constant change.

Elsewhere, the Multi-Size Flower rings are another great variant in the Serafino Consoli portfolio, this time introducing pink and blue sapphires clustered like mineral daisies. There are also Multi-Size bracelets, earrings and pendants that can expand and contract, lengthen and shorten, and change widths, all with a few simple touches. As an aside, I think it is important to note here that despite the engineering behind these pieces, they don’t feel ‘mechanical’. There’s no sense that there are nuts and bolts working behind the scenes to allow this movement to occur. Instead, they feel firmly and beautifully in the realm of fine jewellery that’s been elevated with innovative craftsmanship.

Finally, the ‘Special Match’ line pushes the boundaries of colour with rainbow sapphires, tonal mixes of blue, violet and green sapphires, and gradients of bright pink and deep to sky blue. Each chromatic choice has a different name, including Rainbow, Mix, Soften, Multicolour (for a lovely Tutti Fruitti vibe) and my personal favourite, Spot, which interjects a dominant mineral with random pops of colour in no precise order. There is also an opportunity for bespoke clients to request a unique combination of colours for a totally customised piece… now that Serafino Consoli has mastered its concept, there are no limits to what it can achieve.

If you are heading to Couture this year, make sure to visit Serafino Consoli and witness its clever creations for yourself. If you are anything like me, you will spend far longer than you might expect playing with the different sizes and dimensions before settling on a wrist full of bracelets and a ring on every finger! Knowing they will always fit perfectly, no matter what life throws your way, is a special kind of privilege that I hope more people get to enjoy.