Before you notice the colour, you notice the geometry. The Bvlgari Melone clutch has always been a handbag that behaves like an object, something you could imagine on a plinth between a Murano bowl and a sketchbook of jewellery studies. Now Bvlgari is bringing the Melone back with a new flourish, placing it in the hands of Dree Louise Hemingway and reworking its signature fluted silhouette with tassels in high-voltage shades.
The Bvlgari Melone clutch, revisited
The caption says it plainly: the Melone was born in the 1970s. That decade matters here, because the bag’s appeal is rooted in form rather than logo. Those flute-like ridges give it its sculptural tension, a play of shadow and highlight that does most of the talking even before you factor in hardware, leather choice, or styling.
This return does not try to smooth the Melone into something anonymous. It leans into the original idea, then punctuates it with movement. The new tassels, shown in vivid colours across the campaign imagery, turn an archival silhouette into something that shifts as you do, a detail made to be noticed in a crowd.
Why Dree Louise Hemingway makes sense for this bag
Putting the Bvlgari Melone clutch on Dree Louise Hemingway reads as a deliberate choice. She carries a modern, slightly bohemian ease that keeps the piece from feeling like a museum callback, while still respecting that the Melone is, by design, a small sculpture you happen to hold close.
Fashion houses often default to a celebrity moment when they relaunch an archive-coded accessory. Here, the casting feels more like styling logic than headline chasing: the bag’s ridged body and swinging tassels ask for a wearer who can let an accessory be the point of the look without turning the rest into costume.
Tassels as a design move, not decoration
The temptation with a revival is to add “something new” that functions like a sticker. Tassels are more intelligent than that, because they change the bag’s behaviour. With the Bvlgari Melone clutch, the fluted structure is static and architectural. Tassels introduce tempo, a counterpoint that plays especially well when the bag is tucked in an arm or lifted by hand.
Seen in bright shades, they also do a job that the original 1970s versions arguably did not need to do in their own time: announce the bag quickly, at distance, in a crowded image economy.
Where this sits in Bvlgari’s wider universe
Bvlgari has long treated accessories and jewellery as close cousins, pieces built around shape, volume, and material impact. The Melone’s return feels consistent with that attitude. It is an accessory that wants a little space around it, the best argument for keeping the rest of the outfit clean and letting the silhouette do the heavy lifting.
What to know before you go hunting for one
Bvlgari is positioning the Melone as an “objet d’art,” and for once that phrase fits the product rather than the press release. Availability, colourways, and specifications can vary by market, so the most reliable next step is to start with the brand directly and work outward through authorised stockists.
For the official framing of the revival and campaign imagery, see Bvlgari’s official site. The launch messaging also appears through the brand’s own social channels, including BVLGARI on Instagram, where the Melone’s new tassel treatment is presented as a reimagining of its fluted silhouette.
Photo Credits
Images courtesy of their respective owners.
