RAW TALENT

Good taste and bad taste make bold bedfellows in the chunky gold jewellery pieces of Prada womenswear director Ilaria Icardi

- HANNAH SILVER

Ilaria Icardi boasts an illustrious CV. Currently the womenswear ready-to-wear design director at Prada, she began her career at Etro and Hugo Boss in Milan, before joining Tom Ford in Paris as senior womenswear designer at Yves Saint Laurent. Stints at Celine, Victoria Beckham and Bottega Veneta followed.

But throughout, she has nurtured a lifelong love of jewellery. 'My papa was a jeweller,' says Icardi. 'After he passed away in 2017, I pushed away this legacy, and the fact that I grew up in Valenza [Italy], a town where everyone does jewellery. I grew up with that heritage.

In 2020, after moving to Paris, something shifted.