The Bvlgari Serpenti Tubogas Studs Capsule proves that the most enduring icons don’t merely survive reinvention—they demand it
It began with a photograph. Elizabeth Taylor on the set of Cleopatra in the early 1960s, a gold Serpenti bracelet-watch coiled at her wrist. It was an image so evocative that it propelled the timepiece into popular consciousness and luxury mythology. Richard Burton, her husband and devoted enabler, was allegedly quoted as saying the only Italian she knew was Bvlgari.
Six decades on, the Serpenti’s celebrity lineage endures. Adele wore a yellow-gold Serpenti Tubogas courtside at a National Basketball Association playoff game in Los Angeles. Zendaya has worn it to the Oscars. Anne Hathaway once deployed it at Milan Fashion Week.
For 2026, the new Serpenti Tubogas Studs Capsule looks primed for more celebrity sightings. The latest iteration of the iconic family fuses three signatures that Bvlgari has long held separately: the Serpenti reptile with its hypnotic, sinuous silhouette; the Tubogas bracelet, whose precise winding of fine metal bands offers comfort and fluidity; and the ‘clou’ stud, drawn from the luxury house’s jewellery archives.
It is the inclusion of the latter, however, that proves to be the masterstroke. The stud’s pyramidal facets punctuate the Tubogas coils at intervals, adding sculptural geometry and imbuing the timepiece with a glamorous bejewelled touch.
The four limited editions that comprise the capsule explore this argument across materials. One is rendered entirely in yellow gold, while the remaining three models are crafted in the Gold & Steel bicolour that Bvlgari codified in the 1970s, pairing the cool precision of steel with the warmth of gold studs set against it. Meanwhile, the dial options elevate the proposition: carnelian, mother-of-pearl, blue sodalite, and malachite.
The Serpenti Tubogas Studs Capsule is demanding to craft. The Tubogas technique—in which strips of metal are wound with exacting tension around a
mandrel, then the mandrel removed to leave a hollow, flexible band—demands tolerances that leave no room for correction. Each coil must move against its neighbour with the ease of a living thing while remaining structurally robust for daily wear.
Introducing the stud into this architecture further compounds the difficulty. The pyramidal gold forms must be set so that they sit flush with the motion of the bracelet, their facets catching light without snagging fabric or interrupting the bracelet’s characteristic fluidity. Where studs carry diamonds—three brilliant-cut stones on each facet in the carnelian edition—the setting work is performed at a scale that makes the precision invisible.
The Serpenti has been reimagined in every decade since its inception, and the reinventions that endure are always the ones rooted in genuine creativity. The Studs Capsule belongs to that category by adding another layer of vocabulary to a design language that was already rich with history.
This story first appeared in the August 2026 issue. Purchase it as a print or digital copy, or consider subscribing to us here
