For the timeless and the effortless
In the Cab With
Gaia Repossi
A Q&A on Redefining Luxury, the Misunderstanding of Quiet Luxury, a Fascination with Infinite Variations and Repetition, and the Concept of 'Metal Emotion'
February 1 2025, by Bart Kooi
While carrying forward the design ethos and drawing skills passed down through three generations, Gaia Repossi has redefined the conventions of jewelry—pairing high jewelry with t-shirts and jeans, pioneering her signature stacking style, and drawing inspiration from ethnic jewelry, modern art, and architecture. Her modern designs balance bold statements with profound meaning. It is an approach that has led to collaborations with some of the most influential names in fashion, art, and architecture, firmly establishing Repossi as a contemporary powerhouse.
In this week’s article, 'In the Cab With Gaia Repossi,' a Q&A with a very Cabmate Creative Director who believes that 'minimalism only exists through a statement.'
You studied painting at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and earned a master’s degree in archaeology — an unexpected path for someone to become Creative Director of a High Jewelry Maison?
I didn’t want to follow the typical profession in my family because I wanted to be an artist. As a teenager, I painted every day. I was interested in something with more cultural depth — a different environment. But as I grew up, my father always told me, “You don’t need to learn jewelry or how to draw; you’re born a designer.”
Still you were reluctant at first to follow into your father’s footsteps in the jewellery business. What eventually convinced you to take on the role of Creative Director at Repossi at just 21?
The way jewelry was made, even until recently, wasn’t very contemporary. There wasn’t this discipline of revisiting archives and reinventing them the way fashion does, or reinventing the codes the way design, architecture, or art does. I kept wondering, ‘Why isn’t this happening in jewelry?’
When I started attending art and archaeology classes — while already working with my father — that’s when I discovered all my references. I didn’t expect studying archaeology to involve ancient jewelry as much, but it opened up an entirely new visual world with so much depth. It gave me so many ideas and concepts to explore. It provided me with a lot of keys and nourished my creative, imaginative world; it started a new vocabulary I could use in our designs.
My father’s approach was to slowly let me follow into his footsteps — he was very smart about it. He gave me a lot of space and creative freedom. But also complete trust, probably because he already knew what was coming next and saw it before I did. I think those [space, creative freedom, and trust] are essential for any creative person.
Was it your father’s wish for you to follow in his footsteps?
It was his biggest dream. He knew I could draw and loved doing it. He also liked that I had different ideas. There was absolutely no fear about my eccentricity or vision—crazy ideas were always welcome.
Early in your career at Repossi, you challenged the conventions of high jewelry—for instance, by pairing a diamond necklace with a t-shirt. Why was breaking away from traditional notions so important?
It was about anchoring jewelry in a reality that was now. I thought, ‘Why are the advertising campaigns for jewelry brands always with an actress and wind blowing in her hair?’ That’s not real.
But also, you have to reinvent classics. If you approach a discipline purely as it is, there is no art. Jewelry is primarily an applied art, a discipline — it needs to have depth. You can’t just do a pretty object, that’s really not enough.
At the time, I wasn’t really aware of my affinity for minimalism or the minimal art movement — this way of creating that begins with one simple idea and can be developed infinitely. Variations and repetitions are the key of my designs, forming a true minimal design concept. My stacking signature resembling tribal stacking, but also offering infinite possibilities for variation: These were the unconventional ideas [in jewelry], far more unconventional than they might seem.
In your work, you’re redefining opulence by emphasizing understated elegance and modernity. How would you define this new vision of luxury and jewelry?
Everyone uses the term "quiet luxury," right? By definition, that’s what my brand is. It’s an overused term, one that people don’t necessarily like, but it is what we are.
The question of ‘What is modern opulence?’ came up in an interview I did with Francesco Vezzoli, just before I started creating very large, expensive pieces. People would say, ‘Your jewelry is very simple, it’s for everyday — you don’t have anything for the red carpet,’ and that really upset me.
That’s when I designed Serti Sur Vide, which carries the essence of a solitaire ring, like all the high-end jewelry classics. They were opulent, but in a very modern way. When creating something extremely simple, it’s essential to make a statement.
It is a statement. In fact, minimalism only exists through a statement. Otherwise it’s boring—something you see and forget. You have to make a statement with the least, that’s the key.
[Quiet luxury] is misunderstood. People say it’s flat, that it’s sober. But it’s not—it’s exactly the opposite. You just have to understand it. People think that loud can only be achieved by screaming, but this is a different kind of loud.
How do you translate your vision into both your jewelry designs and the overall visual identity of the Repossi brand?
It needs to have certain hints of the past and bring them back. [It needs] to have a narrative, that’s how the existing is pushed into a modern version. It’s a very interesting way to create something both contemporary and of the future, while still linked to the past.
Your background in art and archaeology is evident in your collections, like the Berbere collection inspired by Amazigh hand tattoos. How do you integrate these cultural references into your modern aesthetic?
If you’re into modernism, Africa is full of abstraction. I have a series of books on ethnic jewelry here that are my Bibles. They are very complete, covering a large spectrum of what ethnic jewelry actually is.
I remember before I did my first designs, I saw how people in the desert, in Northern Africa, and in India, were piling up their jewelry. Nomadic pieces, not fancy jewelry. To me, that was the most elegant thing I had ever seen. I wanted to translate that into something contemporary. That’s where my stacking idea was born.
Architecture is a very similar discipline to jewelry; it follows often the same design principles. When I worked with Rem Koolhaas on the concept for the Vendôme store, during our first meeting he looked at the rings and said, ‘Ah, this is architecture.’
The art world still is my biggest passion. Art is always in the back of my mind, it is always with me.
We did a collaboration with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation four years ago. I delved into the jewelry he created when he was very young, before he became a photographer. The pieces weren’t very minimal, they were hippie, border punk. Some I reinterpreted as they were — far more figurative than my usual work — while others I adapted to my own aesthetic by stacking them, and cleaning them into abstraction. It was an incredible experience.
Definitely. I think that it is by contrast that you make a statement.
By making something that looks very simple, but actually has many layers of study behind it. By reflecting on how to rethink certain classics and redefine them in a contemporary way. That is when the layers emerge, and the contrast happens.
The Berbere collection, because that is really where the minimalist impulse started, and it gave a very loud response and it was very loved. It also allowed an infinite possibility of variations through the time with different versions.
Speaking of a ring that talks: We did a variation together with art director Peter Miles, that was called the Metric Ring. It had a text on it put together by Peter; a poem, which says ‘Metal emotion,’ with at the back ‘Ever Looping Gold For Ever.’ It was shot by the artist and photographer Roe Ethridge. Later, one of the pictures was exhibited at a Gagosian show Roe did with them.
It was about a metal emotion. That is definitely the ring that, in the end, expresses my vision in a literal way.
I’m more of a researcher than a regular client. I work with several retailers who only have sample pieces. They told me that some of the samples they have, like the Tom Ford pieces, were made on Kate Moss’s body, who has the same height as I do. I don’t have to remodel them to my size; they’re just perfect.
I love the idea of a sample. What Pieter [Mulier] is doing at Alaïa is creating pieces that feel handmade, like samples. I’m so happy that it’s being commercialized now because it’s really dying in our industry—the craftsmanship, the way some of us in the industry still create things with depth.
Just like your work, your personal style is minimal, but also has character. How do you strike this balance in your clothing?
I can’t wear things that are too classic — or I have to break them. Certain bags, like a Kelly for example, look way too classic on me. I need something as simple, or more bare — although my mother, who’s a very classic lady, called me an eccentric.
I’ve loved wearing men’s clothes and suits from a very young age. They reminded me of my father, as a father figure, I guess. But later on, I [discovered] I can also be extremely feminine at the same time. And then I see my mother at times, when she was my age.
I dress on impulse; nothing is pre-calculated, it’s always intuitive. It’s hard to describe how this happens. The minimalist artists in the US, as a concept and as a description of what minimalism is, refused to define it. That’s also when a lot of us, like Phoebe [Philo] or others, tend to not explain through words what cool is. You talk less to say more.
Donna Karan had her “Seven Easy Pieces.” What would your Seven Easy Pieces (must-have essentials) be?
For me, what comes back are the colors, the shapes, and the cuts. But I cannot put it into seven pieces. It changes a lot from one season to the other.
I’m not attached to items, I’m not sentimental about them. I want to have what I wear now, and I keep very few things in my current wardrobe. I started emptying my closet at a very young age; I’m a Buddhist stuck in a luxury world. [laughs]
Finally, as always, my final question is: What makes something very Cabmate to you?
It [Cabmate] is minimal, definitely. For me, it’s a black silhouette. But there is also nostalgia from the ‘90s.
It’s this concept of less is more that makes a statement. The less is more Helmut Newton was talking about. It has all of what we’ve talked about so far, with a sense of cool. Classicism is challenging to make cool. It needs to have a little edge of youth or coolness, something that feels décontracté. It isn’t calculated; that’s what’s cool about it •
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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