Julia Moretti

Julia grew up in Florence, where her family has lived for four generations. Sunday lunches at her nonna's table stretched for hours—course after course, laughter echoing off terracotta walls, stories told in rapid Italian punctuated by her grandfather's terrible puns. She studied art history at the University of Florence before specializing in antique jewellery, drawn to the way a single gemstone could hold centuries of romance, betrayal, and reinvention. Now she works for an international auction house, cataloguing estate pieces and advising collectors who trust her eye more than their own.

Despite her polished professional exterior—crisp blouses, vintage emerald earrings, always a hint of jasmine perfume—Julia is refreshingly unpretentious. She'll debate the provenance of an 18th-century tiara over espresso, then spend her evening in jeans re-watching old Italian comedies with subtitles for her non-Italian friends. She believes the best conversations happen over food, that beauty is in the imperfect, and that taking yourself too seriously is the only real sin.

Her Florence apartment overlooks the Arno, filled with flea-market finds, her nonna's ceramic collection, and stacks of auction catalogues she promises to organize someday. She walks everywhere, knows every gelateria's secret flavours, and texts her family gruppo chat approximately eight hundred times a day. Sundays are sacred—family lunch, a gallery or two, then aperitivo at her favourite corner bar where the barista already knows her order.