When Francesca Villa isn’t designing small treasures, she’s hunting for them — in flea markets, antique shops and among specialist memorabilia collectors. She lives for the hunt, tracking down everything from vintage gambling chips, some of which are made of ivory, to cameos and Victorian-era Essex Crystal.
Her curiosity takes her around the world, and she relishes the moment when she returns to her hotel and puts all of her “treasure on the bed. I look at it and get so excited, I can hardly sleep. And that’s when I start thinking about what I’m going to call” the pieces of jewelry, she said.
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Villa, who grew up traveling with her vintage- and antique-loving parents, uses her discoveries both as inspirations and centerpieces for her fine jewelry collections.
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They have names like Change Your Stripes, a collection of reversible rings and pendants with a cameo on one side and a little painting on the other; Lover’s Eye, which features pendants with lenticular eyes that wink, or roll, and Being Crystal, which showcases colorful Essex Crystal carvings in settings made from gold and precious gems.
Her latest collection, On the Road, is based on vintage American truck pins. Villa has created nine designs, which she’s taking to Couture in Las Vegas, and they’re a lot more glam and expensive than the original metal and enamel ones.
Villa has turned the working man’s pins into flaming psychedelic creations that feature diamonds, sapphires, rubies, brightly colored enamel, lapis, opal, coral and white or pink gold. They can be worn as pendants or brooches.
“My idea, at first, was to use the real vintage pins but they were not in very good condition, and I couldn’t make jewelry out of them. But I really, really loved them — I was obsessed by them — so we ended up keeping the exact shapes and scale of the vintage pins, and creating something very precious,” she said in an interview.
The original pins first started appearing in the 1970s, alongside trucker caps, as an homage to the open road, and a badge of honor for the long-distance drivers.
The pieces, which are priced between 12,000 pounds and 29,000 pounds depending on the materials, were made by the craftspeople at Villa’s atelier in Valenza, a famous fine jewelry and goldsmith hub in Italy‘s Piedmont region. In addition to creating her whimsical, detailed collections, Villa’s atelier works for top fine jewelry houses around the world.
Villa launched her company in 2007 in response to all of the work her atelier was doing for those houses. She said her dream was to fuse “very high-end craftsmanship” with her passion for collecting and visual storytelling.
“I really pay attention to the little, little details of these collections. On the Road is just nine pieces, but it took me more than one year to make them because I’m obsessed with finding the right color and combination of stones [and materials]. If I want red, it has to be a very specific red. It’s a very long process,” she said.
Making jewelry out of vintage memorabilia is even more challenging, as Villa is adamant about respecting the integrity of the original pieces. “It can be risky, and we have to be careful not to ruin them. I love these objects and I want to preserve them. In the atelier we often have to find new kinds of techniques, and modify the way we work, to transform these pieces into the jewelry,” she said.
Sometimes she’s forced to look outside Valenza, and Italy, for specialist craftspeople.
During the interview, Villa is wearing a ring from her Close Encounters collection, which showcases incongruous animals and plants living side-by-side. There are whales and cacti; birds and deep-sea fish, or fruit and flowers bursting from the same stalk.
The rings and pendants are made from hand-carved cabochon rock crystal, in the style of Victorian-era Essex Crystal, and also painted by hand.
She said her atelier didn’t have the skills to do that kind of work in-house, so she found two master carvers from Germany who are specialists in the reverse intaglio method, and who used single-hair brushes to paint their designs.
Villa said her next challenge is to incorporate her collection of vintage matchbooks — with decorated matches — into jewelry. “I need to figure out a way out to protect the books and the matches — and I’m sure I will do it sooner or later,” she said.
Villa also makes one-of-a-kind pieces. On her website now there is the Rose Garden Ring, which is made from a vintage English button with a filigree design. She’s lined the perimeter with rubies and set the button in rose gold. Another ring, the New Galaxy, is made from a piece of white naga shell, which is set with diamonds, iolite, tourmaline and topaz.
Villa, whose collections sell at boutiques worldwide including Dover Street Market, Muse at Nordstrom and Moda Operandi, also makes bespoke items with objects that clients give her. She can also personalize her existing designs for clients. She does a collection called Being Furry, where she makes hand-carved and painted crystal portraits (similar to Essex Crystal) of people’s pets. The rings and pendants are set in gold and adorned with precious stones.
Villa said she loves creating unique pieces for clients because she knows the sentimental value will always be greater than the commercial one.
“When I’m doing those bespoke commissions, I never, ever work with super-precious stones. These jewels are part of someone’s story, so I am happy to make them from plastic or something that my client found on the beach. They tell personal stories, and are reminders of important moments in life,” she said.