The Orticola collection by Federica Rettore, with a pair of earrings on the podium of the Couture Design Awards ♦
Orticola is the name of an exhibition-market organized in spring in the most central gardens of Milan. It is an appointment for lovers of flowers and gardening, but also a moment of social life for the upper class of the Lombard city. And Federica Rettore was born and works in Milan, even though she has been touring the world with her jewelry collections for a long time. What is link among gardening and the designer? Simple: his latest collection is called Orticola. An idea that must have inspired the jewelery maker a lot, since a pair of earrings from the Orticola collection ended up on the podium (second place) in the Best in Innovative category at the Couture Design Awards.
The beauty of the collection, however, is that it does not aim to reproduce the plants as if the jewels were small sculptures. Unlike other colleagues who copy leaves and flowers using gold and precious stones, Federica Rettore decided to create jewelry as if they were an alien botanic. Leaves, but with opals and gold veins that are not a simple photograph of nature, but an original interpretation. The idea appealed to Couture, in fact, and probably will be successful even among those who attend Orticola.