Getting the band together: Inside Bvlgari and Fender's unlikely collaboration

Justin Norvell of celebrated guitar maker Fender on the Stratocaster guitar turning 70 and a new tie-up with the Italian luxury house

Johnny Marr playing the limited-edition Bvlgari x Fender Stratocaster at the launch. Photo: Bvlgari

"The idea of time and music is really so natural,” explains Justin Norvell, executive vice president at American guitar maker Fender, as he describes the surprising collaboration between Fender and Bvlgari unveiled at Geneva Watch Days in early September.

As part of the collaboration, the brands are offering two limited-edition collectibles – a GMT watch of which 1,200 pieces are available, and only 70 pieces of Bvlgari x Fender Stratocaster guitars.

Invented in 1954 by Leo Fender, the Stratocaster is inextricably intertwined with music history. “If you’re a fan of music, the iconography of the Stratocaster just resonates because you saw it growing up, on MTV or in concerts,” says Norvell. “It’s a connection to music being a huge part of your life, it’s your soundtrack. And music really is notes set in time.”

While the results of the collaboration are undeniably eye-catching, this is something of a surprising tie-up, to say the least. On one side there is a storied Italian house steeped in monied elegance. On the other, a guitar maker that is the stuff of rock ‘n’ roll legend. Yet, as Norvell explains, the two are closer than many imagine. “We are separate worlds, but there are a lot of parallels, not only in the high-end craftsmanship, but in the collecting culture.”

Justin Norvell, executive vice president of Fender. Photo: Fender

The new GMT watch has an aluminium case, paired with a rubber strap and bezel the colour of bitter chocolate, something of a departure for Bvlgari timepieces known for strict colour coding. The dial too is in warm, earthy tones, echoing the famous original two-colour Sunburst patterning of the first ever Stratocaster. With a warm golden wood centre, which darkens towards the edges, this gradation is part of Fender’s iconography, now applied to the Bvlgari timepiece. On the dial, the Italian maison’s name is picked out in gold.

The Stratocaster guitar meanwhile has the same fading colouring that nods to the 1954 original, with hand-wound pickups, a rosewood fingerboard and a smaller pick guard. On the back is a plate that reads “Bvlgari meets Fender Custom Shop. Limited Edition".

This charmingly off-kilter pairing came about when Bvlgari was exploring music via its chiming watches, a path that eventually led to Fender. It helps too that one of the key figures at Bvlgari is a guitar devotee, who set the project in motion. “What else could we do?” Norvell laughs, “We said ‘let’s explore this. Let’s see if there’s interest’. And what makes it work, is it’s a mutual admiration between the two of us. And it’s not heavy-handed. We’re not putting a guitar on the dial of the watch and we’re not putting a watch on the guitar. It’s just bringing the spirit of both into the design in a very tasteful and elegant way.”

The Bvlgari GMT watch made in collaboration with Fender. Photo: Bvlgari

While Fender has experience in collaborations – working with the likes of hype brand Supreme and Saint Laurent – this latest project has a different emphasis. “The visual weight of [the Strat] is so heavy in the consciousness that it was definitely the guitar that both of us wanted. While we have other guitars, the Stratocaster is the one that most people will look at and just say ‘I’ve seen that before,’” says Norvell.

Although designed 70 years ago, the Stratocaster remains revolutionary. “Before Fender, an electric guitar was big, hollow-bodied and built more like a violin,” Norvell explains. Instead, Fender created a version that was solid wood, in alder and ash for superior sound quality, and that was influenced by the design work around him. “It was taking [Charles and Ray] Eames and Dieter Rams’s mid-century, post war design and reinterpreting it. Leo Fender was not a guitar player, so he approached it through a completely different lens. It was radical.”

Fast forward to today and the guitar has taken on a positioning far beyond the sum of its parts. “It’s kind of transcended,” Norvell explains. “It’s not just a make of guitar, it is the symbol of creativity and freedom of expression, with a rock and roll edge.”

Johnny Marr playing the limited-edition Bvlgari x Fender Stratocaster at the launch. Photo: Bvlgari

The list of famous musicians who have played the Stratocaster is long. “It is the guitar used by Buddy Holly on the Ed Sullivan show and Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock and Monterey, lighting it on fire. It’s Nirvana, Eric Clapton, John Mayer and the Arctic Monkeys. It continues to be reinvigorated and reinterpreted because the magic of the Stratocaster is that it doesn’t sound like itself. It allows someone to sound like themselves,” says Norvell.

While this new collaboration with Bvlgari will bring it to a new audience, Fender already has a long history of custom-made guitars through its Custom Shop division. “It is the highest echelon of our guitar making,” says Norvell. “It is really handcrafted and each one is artisan made. We made a Faberge egg guitar that’s worth about $1 million. It’s all hand-inlaid with jewels and gold.”

For the launch, Fender invited Johnny Marr – the man behind 1980s Manchester post-punk band The Smiths’s distinctive, throbbing guitar sound – to play at the event. It was the perfect culmination to a long project. “It was about a year, but it was effortless. We all just believe in it, both enjoyed and we’re both passionate about it,” says Norvell.