“If you understand Venice, you understand life.”
It’s late October and Roberto Coin, the consummate Italian jeweler, is standing in the middle of his showroom in Vicenza, in the northern Veneto region of Italy. His namesake brand has introduced thousands of American retailers and consumers to the beauty and craftsmanship of jewels made here in the “gold city,” as Vicenza in known, but Coin, who is 80 years old, was born in nearby Venice. And when he makes a declaration like the one above, it’s with the sincerity and conviction of a true Venetian.
Coin’s theory of Venice as a microcosm of the wider world rests on the floating city’s long and rich history as medieval Europe’s most important entrepôt. Founded in 697, it was a republic for 1,100 years, before, as Coin explains, “we became French for a while, then Austrian, then Italian. Now, if you understand Venice, you really understand life.”
And to understand Venice, Coin insists, you must attend Il Ballo del Doge. The masquerade ball is an annual Venetian Carnival tradition taken to a lavish extreme.
On the day after our showroom visit, a Saturday evening at the end of October, I join a group of 30 or so guests—including editors from a host of fashion and lifestyle publications, such as Robb Report, WWD, Goop, and Oprah Daily—to experience the spectacle for myself.
“The event is especially done for you,” Coin tells us during our showroom visit. “It’s very rare that we do an event for so little people. We’re only 32, but the event is special. And then you understand a little bit about Venice.”
Well before we arrive at the palatial venue for the evening’s festivities—known as Palazzetto Pisani, it’s located on the Grand Canal near St. Mark’s Square—I already know this will be the most opulent party I’ve ever attended. That’s because Coin has seen to it that every guest is outfitted in 17th- and 18th-century period costumes by Antonia Sautter, a Venetian fashion designer and event planner whose atelier in Venice not only decks us out in fancy dresses, but also produces the extravagant banquet and performance we’re about to witness.
My enormous champagne-colored frock comes with an ornate mask and a feathery hat that reminds of me something from The Pirates of Penzance, and though I feel a little silly maneuvering into a water taxi amid all the layers, I am certain the evening wouldn’t feel as special without all of the pomp and circumstance.
Once inside the palace, masked performers wearing feathered hats and giant wings welcome us on stilts in over-the-top Venetian fashion. My fellow editors, also dressed in elaborate gowns of various colors and layers, mill around the ground floor reception area, dazzled by the all-female band playing classical instruments in all-white attire topped by headpieces that look like angel’s wings. The scene is nothing short of magical—if also a bit psychedelic.
Soon, we take our seats upstairs at the longest and most decorated dinner table I have ever seen: Picture a bounty of fruits, flowers, candelabra, glassware, dinner plates, and gilded decorative items (such as the winged Lion of St. Mark, Venice’s mascot) piled high enough to obscure the view of our fellow guests.
Coin, who is dressed like an 18th-century Venetian prince in a gold brocade coat, presides over the affair with obvious pride. His lovely wife, Pilar, and their 30-year-old son, Kevin, are seated at the table, as is his elder son, Carlo Coin, who serves as vice president and CEO of Roberto Coin S.p.A, the brand’s Vicenza–based parent company.
Beyond showing off his Venetian bona fides, Roberto, we’ve come to understand, is hosting our group on this most spectacular of press trips because he wants us to understand the history of the brand he founded in 1977 and its enduring legacy, both in America and around the world. That’s especially important in the wake of the announcement in May that the Watches of Switzerland Group—the U.K.-based retail group that owns the Watches of Switzerland and Mayors retail chains, among other retailers—paid $130 million to acquire Roberto Coin Inc., the company that holds distribution rights for the jewelry brand in the United States, Canada, Central America, and the Caribbean. Peter Webster, a longtime friend and business associate of Coin’s, has managed the U.S. business for 28 years, and he remains president (and, as it happens, is seated right next to me).
In its announcement, Watches of Switzerland made clear that the deal did not include Roberto Coin S.p.A. But Roberto stresses to us throughout our stay that he feels this detail needs more emphasis.
“We sold the distribution, which I think is a good thing for the United States,” Roberto says toward the end of the evening, after we are feted by a series of extravagant performances featuring singers and dancers as adept at performing classical set pieces as they are at vogueing in a fabulous cover of Madonna.
“Basically, you will see us for a long, long, long time,” Roberto says in parting, secure in the knowledge that, despite the changing tides, his company, like Venice itself, isn’t going anywhere.
Top: Roberto Coin at Il Ballo del Doge in Venice in late October (all photos courtesy of Roberto Coin S.p.A.)
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