Interview: Maria Grazia Baldan

Among Maria Grazia Baldan’s list of memorable clients are members of the Barilla family, Italy’s most iconic pasta purveyors, and dye manufacturers Super-Iride. Baldan tells us this while perched on the plush couch in a quiet corner of Lane Crawford, preparing for our photoshoot following a long and fruitful conversation about China, spirituality, and discovery. “Everything is connected,” says the Italian jewellery designer, and this strange circularity of life is brought into sharp relief when she reveals how her first pieces were fashioned not from precious gems or warring state-era mementos – as they are now – but dried farfalle and fettucine pasta from Barilla, dyed in bright and cheerful hues by Super-Iride. Baldan was a child, making do with what she found.


^{24k gold bangle with silver and turquoise Tibetan hair decorations and white jade hair pin}

And indeed, so much of Baldan’s career and design philosophy has been marked by a similar rhetoric of discovery, as well as of return and homecoming. Famous for her penchant for transforming foraged Asian artefacts and ancient discoveries – from 19^th century Tibetan hair decorations to Liao and Han dynasty trinkets – into highly covetable haute jewellery designs, it is not surprising that her wares are gaining more momentum in China. “It’s late, but the Chinese are starting to realise the value of their objects,” she says. “I’m very happy when I sell to them, because pieces are coming back home.”


^{18k and 24k gold pendant with gilt bronze tiger mask}

Baldan’s relationship with China is a love story spanning decades. Born in Udine, the north-eastern province in the Friuli-Venezia region, and a loyal resident of Milan, Baldan began a whirlwind trip to Asia by following the man she fell in love with at 27. “The gods sent him to give me the possibility to discover China,” she recounts fondly. “It was so different back then. Mao had died just one year before [in 1976] and China was very closed. But I went into Guangdong, and then after that I started to go around Beijing. Each time, I went for business but also to go around China and discover its history. I’m very interested in old Chinese tatler_stories.

“I like to ask, ‘who made this? What day was it? Who was his mother?’” she laughs. “Really, I have to stop, sometimes. But my dream is that each piece must have history. And for that reason, every piece that I sell, I sell the story as well of what I know of it.” In addition, Baldan never sets out with a firm idea of how her “collection” will look, or what theme it will take. For her, it is about preserving the original artefact but enhancing it by way of luxurious touches – 24-carat gold is a favourite, and sparkling diamonds.


^{18k and 24k gold pendant with bronze Zhou dynasty fish "money" and Han dynasty coin}

Despite the clear high-end market she caters to, Baldan is not simply in the business of selling beautiful things; she peddles narratives. That’s why when we pad around the glossy glass cabinets housing her designs, we come to know less of the precious metals and gemstones, and more of the tradition of fish money used by villagers during the Zhou dynasty to thank the water gods, or the purpose behind the tinkling bells of her new bracelet line – a nod to the anklets worn by Indian women to frighten away snakes hidden in tall grass.

Later on, Baldan brandishes a small gift box, within which are dozens of envelopes, marked with numbers and sealed in plastic. She carefully picks one out of the pack – number 50 – and playfully intones, “And the lucky winner is…” It’s the certificate that goes with the 18- and 24-carat gold fish money pendant with a Han dynasty coin. There’s a handwritten card listing the provenance of the antique elements, and a small print-out of a listing Baldan found online on the history of the currencies. “My normal customers are not people who want to know how much something costs,” she explains. (For the record, the fish pendant is priced at HK$42,800.) “It’s more about personal pleasure, and appreciating the history and the fact that each unit is one of a kind. Yes, if someone asks you where you got that nice necklace from you can say, ‘I got it at Lane Crawford’, but you can also tell them that it was a coin made by this emperor and so on.”


^{18k gold pendant with bronze Chou dynasty coin and natural jade frog and tourmaline "leaf"}

Baldan’s pieces are infused with the unmistakable mark of real people and experiences – a philosophy that she has carried her entire life. In school, she was a history and mathematics buff, but stopped studying in her teens. “I was proud to be independent from my parents. I started working at a bank when I was very young, taking telephone calls.” She eventually moved up to become a secretary, then spun off to work for Helena Rubinstein cosmetics. “My ‘high school’ is the places where I have worked. They were my university. I learned everything regarding finance at the bank, and at the cosmetics counter I learned how to be with the customers. It’s important to be in the battlefield, no?”

All Baldan’s knowledge and inspiration comes from her travels and encounters with people. “People tell me their tatler_stories, and I see things for myself. Everything is already invented.” At her shop in Italy, she says, there are all kinds of customers. “But whether or not they leave my shop with jewellery, they leave as a friend. This is very important.” At the end of our conversation, Baldan warmly welcomes us to visit her in Milan and, having noted our interest in Italian cuisine, says cheekily: “Barilla has a school for how to cook pasta. If you want to have a stage over there, let me know.” It’s funny how things come full circle. 

Photography by King Fung