The precious jewellery of the next century will undoubtedly owe much of its design technique and aesthetic nuance to one woman. These requisite pieces are not however in the vein of the post-modern where eminent lack of wearability is the most striking feature, that and the feeling that the wearer is not much more than a podium for these pieces of motionless sculpture.

It seems rather, that the future of jewellery is as romantic and glitteringly decorative as that produced in times when the aesthetic reigned supreme and workmanship was unsurpassed. The difference is technological advancement to create a new aesthetic, indeed, a 'new look' as all great innovations in wearable art have been hailed over the decades. The designing catalyst is a woman simply called Marina B.

Marina B's jewellery is contemporary, but with an undeniable courtesy to the centuries old tradition of this the most personal of decorative arts. It reflects the self-confidence, the casual drama and the practised elegance of today's woman. The intricacy and detail are almost too opulent; thus by some quirk of fashion sensibility, it renders them perfect foils for the casual chic of day wear. The rich today do not dress up their jeans and t-shirts with a stylish designer jacket and a simple gold necklet, rather, they reach deep into the jewellery vaults and snap on an ornate Marina B chocker or a pair of her glorious reversible earrings.

B is for Bulgari, one of a few jewellery houses in the world who have become institutions of beauty and whose names evoke the hushed, almost ecclesiastical reverence of the devoted. Now in her fifties, Marina B is the granddaughter of Sotirio Boulgaris, the patriarch and jewellery master who arrived in Rome at the end of last century from his native Greece. Of Sotirio's two sons, she is the daughter of Constantine who with his brother, Giorgio, transformed jewellery into an original artform that was, in a word, revolutionary. Bulgari first established their name and invention in Naples with their silverware and later, as they progressed to the design of jewellery, the opened a retail shop in Rome's Via Condotti which has been the home of the family jewellery house ever since Constantine was a master of silver plate and his brother a genius with stones: together they created the visionary Bulgari style that was to see their heavy gold and silver settings embracing large stones, adorn the discerning rich and famous the world over. "I think that the Italians welcomed the Greek influences of my father and grandfather because fifty or so years ago when they were beginning to produce their very original designs, there really was not much done in the way of jewels," reflects Marina. "They started a new trend which was accepted world-wide."

Marina's earliest memories place her in the workshops and at the design tables of her father, an exacting, scholarly man who taught Marina the aesthetics of traditional jewellery, the technicalities and mechanics of design, and an acute business sense which would lay the foundations of her own professional career. As glittering a prize as her own independent art is today, Marina was born into a set of circumstances which were irrevocable and did not allow for her initial ambitions to calcify. "I really did not want to be a jeweller," says marina frankly. "I originally wanted to be mathematician but that was not considered viable for a woman in a Greek family. I then had no choice: I went into the family business and I guess now, with Marina B, it is a way of doing it on my own terms."

Doing it on her own terms is an exigent philosophy for Marina, finding its most important test during the period that the third generation of Bulgari's entered the family business. Apart from her own two sisters and half brother, Uncle Giorgio's sons Gianni, Paolo and Nicola became prominent not just in the running of Bulgari, but in the social pages and newspapers, leading high profile, glamorous lives amongst the beau monde. The contradictions were overwhelmingly distinct" the cousins were effusive and extravagant in words, style and design, Marina was not, reflecting the shyness, quiet intensity and devotion to her work that marked her father's personality. Finding the rigours of both family life and heritage too restricting, particularly when it began to infiltrate the world of her own conception, that of her design sensibility, Marina knew that she had to depart.

"The third generation of the family - which was mine - grew up and I think that it was because there were so many of us, we all developed different personalities and philosophies and so I decided to part ways with them and begin my own business as Marina B.

"There were seven of us altogether: We had different ideas about jewellery and life and relationships - nothing was wrong," she says, with the air of one who still closely guards the family integrity. "it was just a matter of essential difference - it even happens with the bees, you know, they emigrate..."

Upon her departure, the cousins asserted one strict condition: she was not to use the family name in her quest for independence. The loss of her surname as a means of identification is a small concession one might say. Marina B by name is Marina Bulgari by the nature of her design. Her pieces, although immediately recognisable in their own right, still bear an inescapable familiarity based on the inventory of her father's education.

Her first showroom opened in Geneva in 1979 to a rousing reception. Her first pieces although almost excessively mathematical in execution, an element which she has since modified to a softer, more feminine aesthetic while retaining the purity of line, were striking original. In fact, they were universally lauded as some of the most innovative, remarkable jewels to grace the display cases in many, many years. She now operates offices and showrooms in Milan, Monte Carlo - where she lives when she is earthbound - "I live on a plane these days" - and now in New York where her cousins have just opened a new Bulgari store down the road. Despite her personal success and professional self-fulfillment, Marina B remains actually aware that had fate not decreed otherwise, she would not have even had the opportunity to attempt solo flight.

'My father died in 1973 and I would never have been able to start my own business whilst he was alive," she says frankly, "He would never have allowed that to happen. You must understand that with a Greek family, you stick with them at all costs..."

Through a most fitting form of poetic justice, her unfulfilled dream of becoming a mathematician has found realisation in her pre-supposed profession. Indeed, it is with a mathematic, scientific precision and an exacting spatial awareness that she embraces the quandaries of technical perfection and innovation in jewellery design. Her jewellery pieces are glittering extensions of the body - for it is Marina's opinion that jewellery should fit to the contours of the body like clothes.

She has attempted and overcome styles of jewellery that through the sheer logistics of design difficulty have struck terror in the hearts and workshops of more traditional jewellers. She is well-known for her chokers, for instance, which defy conventional design logic. The choker is traditionally a very rigid uncomfortable piece of jewellery, inflexible in both the wearing and the workmanship as the precious raw materials such as gold and gemstones are far from malleable. With her inherent engineering prowess, Marina devised a system of implanting a tiny fine spring of 18K gold or platinum inside the choker, transforming the rigidity into a fluid and most importantly, comfortable piece of jewellery. Using the concept of wearability as the vital consideration, Marina simply set about finding a solution.

"Aesthetically, if you look at a woman with a necklace close to her face the effect is very decorative. It strikes people of course, because the traditional type of necklace circled the neck softly on the lower part. To execute this properly, you must use new techniques which involves springs", explains Marina with characteristic modesty.

"I was not the first to sue the spring mechanism: it had been used sporadically before in jewellery but I took the basic idea and created a massive solution using diamonds which no-one had dared to do before - they were scared to use them to mount jewellery."

In effect, she has a mind like an 18k trap. Marina has actually revolutionised jewellery design to the point where she had patented a special cut for precious and semi-precious stones, appropriately named, the 'Marina B. Cut', which has since spawned a wave of shameless imitators. The style can be best described as half way between a heart shape and a triangle and is only one new development included in her repertoire of ingenious invention. Apart from the remarkable chokers, are necklaces and earrings with the capacity to interchange the jewels with others and to change entirely the position of the central stone, so that the jewellery worn to lunch can be transformed into richer evening splendour by simply replacing onyx with diamonds or sapphires.

She conceives of both the overall effect and the more subtle but nonetheless stunning aesthetic. Contained within the complex and colourful Nasser earrings, is again the tiny hinge affix the central stone - in this case an enormous green tourmaline - and as the wearer moves, so does stone ever-so-slightly. enkindling the stones as they rotate gently in the light on their fine spring mechanisms. So carefully sculpted is the gold and metalwork, that the backs of Marina B's pieces are finished in intricate, highly-polished detail, some bearing her own signature mark, that of a heart shaped stamp without identification, and all indicative of the supremacy of the aesthetic.

With such a rich cultural heritage (as well as her paternal Greek/Italian heritage, her mother was also part German and Italian), and given the nature of the decorative arts where the qualities of inspiration often tend to be quite symbiotic, it might be assumed that Marina would take her inspiration from art or perhaps sculpture.

Although there is no doubt from the superbly colourful and artistic sway of her creations that Marina like other artists, is an aesthete, the intangible impulse does not govern her creative faculties. She is an anomaly - an artist who is not first an aesthete but foremost an engineer.

"Conceptionally, I do not have anyone who helps me in this area. I suppose that I simply must expose myself to new things - not just jewellery - and see how I react to the impetus. Art and sculpture are not part of the creative impetus for me: they are finished works and I can not get anything out of that conceptually. I need to have situations where something is actually happening in front of me... like in nature, a flower for example and how it develops. If you observe very carefully, there is a logic a geometry to it. I will not copy the flower itself, but I will take inspiration from the geometry, the symmetry, the scale. There is a lot in nature that you can observe.

"From an idea however, I must make something concrete - a jewel, and this is the thing that I must always return to. I must consider the properties of a jewel; what it is, where it will be worn and how it must be structured to accommodate the body.

"Much of my inspiration comes from own imagination of course, but I think that you can detect a strong Oriental influence in my designs, I am very close to that apart from being Greek. I take these influences and then incorporate them with my own style. I don't believe that I have consciously looked to my family's style at all because I think that once I was out on my own, my own style developed."

But, it has been said by commentators of her art, that in her adamance to be her own jeweller and indeed self, divorced from the Bulgari name, Marina has subconsciously succeeded in perfecting the Bulgari style in her designs and then 'run away with it'"

Her calm, academic exterior believes the passion and sensuousness that is manifested in the overpowering opulence of her jewels. They are jewels of the Italian Renaissance jewels for the unshackled and the self-confident, reflecting her overriding dedication to colour, respect for texture and placement of the gems in relation to each other so the holistic presentation is a bejewelled and glittering tapestry of interwoven priceless materials Marina B has little care for the cost of her materials: they are utilised in enormous volume with glittering abandon - the KEN bracelet made from 18K gold and black metal contains 711 diamonds alone which places it firmly in the several hundred thousand dollar mark. She is a modern designer of a very old school.

This is not to say that she shuns respect for her costly materials: "In choosing stones I make them part of an overall composition," she says. "I cannot choose one on its own and then try to change it. A pearl is a pearl and I must respect it as such. I must adhere strictly to what it is and what it looks like.

Reflecting her design philosophy Marina's business setup is largely like the ateliers of old - where the most skilled craftsmen in Europe congregated to produce unique, personalised jewellery. She designs, plans, manages and supervises the production of each of these pieces and relates that she has over 10,000 sketches - 1000 of which are now approved designs - which she zealously guards in her Paris studio. The nature of her business orientation means that travelling across the world to consult with clients is an integral part of her lifestyle. She is acutely aware that choosing jewellery such as her own, is an intensely personal as well as costly experience and as such she instils as much of her client's input into the preliminary sketches as possible.

"I have clients all over the world who wish to consult with me personally. It is my job to be able to know what it is that they want exactly, to have considerable understanding, and then work out the drawing which is appropriate to their needs and their tastes. The character of the client is very important but then so is the aesthetic of a person... you must not forget that jewellery is a decorative art and it is from this that the designer must work - to incorporate the decorative side with the character side of the client.

"I do not have a model in mind when I design, certainly not myself, in fact, I never wear my own jewellery except when I am testing a prototype. I have a knowledge of anatomy and so I do not need to have the human body in front of me when I design ... these are basic concepts that I grasped whilst learning the family business."

A team of professional designers aid her in the execution of each piece, simply due to the time element, yet the initial sketches and ideas remain well and truly Marina's own conception.

"I do all the designing myself because that adds a uniformity to the collection that otherwise would not be there. I firstly do a sketch and then the designers work on it and produce approximately five or six interpretations of the first sketch. Out of these I will choose one and say, 'Make this or that modification.' From these we sometimes make 25 prototypes which we test for wearability.

Marina gives little away of her personal life, perhaps because it is so entwined with her profession. She was once married, to a neurosurgeon who died tragically in automobile crash in 1963. She never remarried, preferring to devote herself to her work and to her friends.

" I work twelve hours a day and there is a little space for relaxation. Often I will dine with small groups of friends - talk about research, topical issues and then go to bed at 10.30 p.m. I rise each day at 6.00 a.m. because I find that early in the morning is the best time of the day to design new things both psychologically and physically. By the evening I am very tired and also a little down. I like light very much and each day, when the sunset comes I get a little depressed! I love light - it is in my nature..." And another part of the legacy of Greek nature and her own.

Where her cousins were rebelling in their social lives, shaking up norms, and conventions, Marina saved her defiance for her design technique. It is this element that sets her apart from other jewellery designers. Interestingly, instead of labelling her pieces 'a flash in the pan' or fashion concessions, her older, more stalwart peers have recognised her invention and applauded her for her professional courage. It is almost as if they were awaiting the new challenges that this diminutive woman presents. Her most expensive piece excites her but true to character it is not the cost that animates her as she speaks of this startling necklace. It is the technical precision and achievement which invoke her pride.

"It was a diamond necklace valued at well over US$1 million," she says. "I wanted to invert the general trend which was to put small stones close to the neck and then place the larger ones hanging down. I took a series of huge stones, mounted them on a spring and then I had small ones hanging down like grapes.

"I enjoy being different, shaking up convention, but I would not say that what I do is a heresy by the traditional standards. Other jewellers would look at this necklace for example and say that it was a new concept."

These sentiments are shared not simply by her fellow artisans, but by the bevy of affluent curious who come to her showrooms to view and most often purchase Marina's unique creations. There is a universality to her clients, irrespective of whether they come from the farthest flung corners of the earth or from the oversaturated cities, they like the idea of the' New Look'.

"From the deserts of Saudi Arabia to the deserts of Arizona, they are looking for the 'New Look' says Marina. "The spring mounting, the way of cutting to give the different aesthetic, the departure from classical jewellery.

"The entire jewellery industry has traditionally been rather lazy and conventional and not a lot of time or attention or money was devoted to the creative side of it. Many jewellers still look to the past to design. I hope that the trend to make jewellery essentially decorative art, fun and casual, should rule. Even though I find that women are not wearing the ostentatious classical pieces - indeed, it was one of the influences that made people shift towards the new look, particularly with insurance and security problems - some tradition will probably always survive.

Marina B is not content to simply overturn the manner and definition of precious jewels and their design. Ever looking for new challenges, she perceives that her next revolutionary foray will be in the less expensive but nonetheless glamorous mode.

"If I was to expand, I would design something that is less costly but still in the precious medium. You know, there is still a lot that can be done, many new ideas to be had and much to be studied in various areas, but I know that I would always keep myself in the jewellery mode. I want to explore the field of smaller items, gift items which is still very conventional, there is still a lot to be done..."

And it took one woman to start the revolution...