The sustainable line is made from 100% certified recycled gold
Luxury Italian fashion house Prada made history this week by launching its first fine jewelry collection. Titled Eternal Gold, the line is composed of artisanal pieces made entirely from recycled gold. The collection aims to help drive change in sustainability and transparency practices across the fashion industry by guaranteeing that 100 percent of the gold used in their line is not only recycled but also responsibly sourced.
Eternal Gold has been more than three years in the making and marks the first time that a global, luxury brand is able to guarantee that each piece in its collection is certified recycled gold. The fashion house worked with suppliers registered and certified by the Responsible Jewelry Council (RJC), largely considered to be the world’s leading standard-setting organization for the watch and jewelry industry. Additionally, Prada visited the supplier facilities to ensure that the recycled gold was being separated from mined gold to further guarantee the collection’s sustainability.
Some of the gold was sourced from electronic parts such as smartphone circuit boards that were melted down to mold the jewelry pieces. “Our lifestyles generate a lot of electronic waste,” explains Timothy Iwata, Prada’s jewelry director, to Harper’s Bazaar. “And [those electronic products include] 24-karat gold, the purest kind.”
Each piece of jewelry comes with an electronic card that allows clients to verify its authenticity and sustainability credentials. Customers need only to tap their phone against the card to pull up supplier details and RJC certifications, a feature that offers clients groundbreaking transparency. The collection, featuring adjustable chains and snake and heart motifs, was designed to be worn forever and to be made entirely out of gold, one of the world’s oldest and most sought-after materials – hence the use of the word “eternal” in the line's branding.
Three young contemporary pop icons were chosen for the line’s campaign: Maya Hawke, daughter of pop culture icons Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, also known for her role as Robin Buckley in Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” Amanda Gorman, the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history and Dutch-Korean-Canadian musician Jeon Somi.
Asia London Palomba
Asia London Palomba is a trilingual freelance journalist from Rome, Italy, currently pursuing her master's in journalism at New York University (NYU). In the past, her work on culture, travel, and history has been published in The Boston Globe, Atlas Obscura, and The Christian Science Monitor. In her free time, Asia enjoys traveling home to Italy to spend time with family and friends, drinking Hugo Spritzes, and making her nonna's homemade cavatelli.