Beiruting News

Beirut’s Yacht Club hosts a sparkling journey through Italian Style. The Italian Cultural Institute in Beirut and the Yacht Club of Beirut, under the patronage of the Embassy of Italy, present “DIVA! Italian Glamour in Fashion Jewellery”, a major travelling exhibition dedicated to Italian fashion jewellery from the 1950s to the present day. Promoted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI), the exhibition pmbrings to Lebanon almost 200 pieces that narrate seventy years of Italian creativity, style and craftsmanship.
Curated by Alba Cappellieri – Professor of Jewellery Design at the Politecnico di Milano and Director of the Jewellery Museum in Vicenza – with Beatrice Rossato, Livia Tenuta and Susanna Testa, “DIVA!” is produced in collaboration with POLI.design. Conceived as a travelling project involving Italian Embassies and Cultural Institutes worldwide, the exhibition showcases the finest expressions of Italian fashion jewellery, from major fashion houses to independent designers who experiment with new materials and techniques.
Over the past five years, DIVA! has travelled across several countries in the MENA region and beyond, and its arrival in Beirut — a city with a long-standing jewellery tradition shaped by its own heritage and by Mediterranean exchanges — marks not only a particularly significant chapter in this journey but also its symbolic grand finale, offering an especially resonant context for an exhibition that celebrates creativity, craftsmanship and design.
The exhibition traces a visual and cultural itinerary from the Dolce Vita of the 1950s to prêt-à-porter, from 1990s minimalism to the fashion-tech of the new millennium. Jewels become an “aesthetic mirror” of society: they register changes in silhouettes and lifestyles, the evolution of materials and technologies, and above all the ambitions and achievements of women, whose public image and self-representation have been deeply intertwined with Italian fashion.
Far from being defined solely by the preciousness of metals or stones, Italian fashion jewellery draws its value from creativity, craftsmanship and innovation. It is here that the Made in Italy system reveals its distinctive strength: the dense fabric of workshops, family businesses and specialised districts that, together with major brands, form a chain “from industry to the atelier”, capable of producing small series of high quality and highly recognisable identity.
At the heart of DIVA! lies an idea of jewellery as a cultural object: an artefact that condenses techniques, local materials, artistic traditions and technological innovation. In an age marked by globalisation and digital communication, these pieces reaffirm the importance of craftsmanship and of the “hand” that shapes matter, while at the same time embracing contemporary tools such as new alloys, synthetic materials and advanced production processes.
Within the spaces of the Yacht Club of Beirut, the exhibition unfolds as a sequence of iconic pieces by maisons and designers that have defined the international image of Italian style. Statement necklaces, sculptural bracelets, ironic brooches and experimental materials illustrate how Italian jewellery has moved with ease between opulence and understatement, between pop exuberance and radical simplicity. The works on display show how fashion jewellery has anticipated trends, challenged conventions and contributed decisively to the visual identity of Italian brands.
The exhibition at the Yacht Club of Beirut confirms the shared commitment of the Embassy of Italy, the Italian Cultural Institute and the Yacht Club to promoting cultural dialogue between Italy and Lebanon, highlighting how design, fashion and the applied arts can serve as powerful vehicles of exchange and mutual understanding.
DIVA! Italian Glamour in Fashion Jewellery will be open to the public at the Yacht Club of Beirut from 3rd of December at 6:00 pm until 23rd of December at 12:00.  Admission is free and access from Zeytuna Bay.