Fendi celebrates 100 years with a high jewellery collection inspired by Rome’s fountains

Fendi marks its centenary with a high jewellery collection inspired by Roman fountains and the art of transformation.

The Italian maison Fendi celebrates its 100th anniversary with a stunning high jewellery collection titled Eaux d’Artifice, a proposal that blends tradition, innovation, and a strong connection to Rome, a city that has been a constant muse for the house.

This collection takes its name from the French term for fireworks, but also alludes to the fluidity and sophistication of water. In this exclusive series of pieces, Fendi pays tribute to the iconic fountains of Rome, reinterpreting their dynamism and elegance through precious metals and exceptional diamonds. The result is a visual language that combines architectural elements with poetry, history with a vision for the future.

Delfina Delettrez Fendi, the maison’s jewellery artistic director and fourth generation of the founding family, explains that her creative approach is not to replicate the past but to transform it. “This is what Fendi represents for me: it doesn’t want to repeat history, it wants to project it forward, even if the inspiration comes from Roman fountains,” she affirms. Her vision is reflected in designs that stand out for their artisanal precision and deep symbolism.

At the heart of the collection is a monumental necklace centred around a 20.25-carat fancy vivid yellow diamond. This stone was carefully chosen so that its weight matched the brand’s centenary year. Surrounded by a high-end architectural structure in metals and gems, the design evokes arches, jets of water, and details inspired by the brand’s historic headquarters. In total, the piece includes over 116 carats of white diamonds and another 27 carats of yellow pear-shaped diamonds.

Every element of Eaux d’Artifice is designed to capture strength within softness, as the designer herself explains: “I wanted to capture inner strength through soft lines. I was also thinking about heritage: how water, like my surname, flows from one generation to the next.”

Inspired by the experimental 1954 short film Eaux d’Artifice by filmmaker Kenneth Anger, which shows a female figure walking through the gardens with fountains at the Villa d’Este, Delettrez Fendi develops a play on optical illusion and perspective that translates into jewellery with narrative depth.

The collection also includes three additional sets and cocktail rings featuring gemstones such as imperial topaz, yellow sapphire, spinel, and ruby. Each takes water as a starting point, symbolising continuity and transformation. The Cento set presents a gradient of sapphires that guides the eye towards a 7-carat cushion sapphire, accompanied by a 3-carat diamond, while the Fortuna set transforms the flow of water into abstract shapes adorned with rubies.

Unlike other high jewellery collections focused on ostentation, Fendi’s approach deliberately steers away from chromatic excess, focusing instead on a monochromatic and sophisticated aesthetic, allowing architectural details and craftsmanship to speak for themselves. “I wanted to subvert the idea of celebration as something loud and colourful. Rome is also mystery, it’s contemplation,” Delettrez Fendi remarks.

With Eaux d’Artifice, Fendi not only celebrates its 100 years of history but also reaffirms its place in contemporary high jewellery with a bold proposal, deeply rooted in its identity and designed to look towards the future.