Cristina Ortiz
Fashion & Jewelry Designer
Fashion
Born in the Canary Islands, trained in Paris — three decades shaping the language of modern luxury.
After studying at the École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, Ortiz moved to Milan in 1994 as head designer for Prada's womenswear division, working in close proximity to Miuccia Prada's creative world. She went on to design for Lanvin in Paris, serve as artistic director of Brioni's women's line in Rome, and lead womenswear at Salvatore Ferragamo in Florence — a career defined by couture precision, sculptural silhouette, and a sophisticated feminine intelligence.
Her early years in the Canary Islands — sea, volcanic terrain, intense natural light — formed an aesthetic sensibility rooted in strong contrasts and elemental beauty. That visual language never left her. It surfaces in the architectural clarity of her fashion work and in the mythological symbolism of her jewelry.
From 2017 to 2020 she founded and directed the three-year fashion design degree programme at Raffles Milano, bridging her industry experience with the formation of the next generation of designers.
Get in touch →Fashion Career
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1984 – 86 École de la Chambre Syndicale · Paris
Graduated best of her class from one of Paris's foremost couture institutions — the foundation of her technique in construction, pattern and fashion discipline.
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1994 – 97 Prada · Milan
Design Director — Women's & Accessories. Started as Miuccia's assistant, promoted to brand coordinator and later Design Director. Collaborated with Miuccia in taking Prada from a Milan-known house to an internationally referenced brand for its minimalism and modernism.
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1997 – 01 Lanvin · Paris
Creative Director — Women's RTW, Perfumes & Accessories. Successfully managed the transformation of a world-renowned Haute Couture Maison into a world-leading luxury Ready-to-Wear house.
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2005 – 07 Brioni · Milan
Creative Director — Women's RTW & Accessories. Revamped women's ready-to-wear as 'Leading Lady' and created the Brioni Woman concept — precise tailoring, masculine-feminine tension, controlled sensuality.
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2007 – 09 Salvatore Ferragamo · Florence
Creative Director — Women's RTW; Artistic Director — Accessories. Restored the label's glamour, delivering a highly recognisable style and a strong, coherent brand identity.
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2007 – 09 Chantelle · Paris
Artistic Director — Lingerie. Oversaw retail store concept, advertising campaign, underwear, loungewear, cosmetic products and packaging. Successfully repositioned the house as a luxury intimate lingerie brand.
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2017 – 20 Raffles Milano
Founder & Programme Director — 3-Year Fashion Design Degree. Created and led the fashion design programme at Raffles Milano, mentoring emerging designers and bridging industry-level creative standards with academic formation.
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2020 – 22 Eleventy · Milan
Creative Director. Responsible for the women's fashion and accessories collections, translating the brand's strong masculine DNA into a coherent and authentic feminine expression. Defined the creative vision across ready-to-wear and accessories, ensuring continuity with Eleventy's heritage while developing a distinct and credible women's universe.
Jewelry
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2013 – Cristina Ortiz Jewelry · Milan
Founder & Creative Director. An independent jewelry house known for its sensual, ethereal aesthetic — celebrating femininity, inner strength and the female body. Worn by Blake Lively, Madonna, Alicia Keys and Zaha Hadid, among others.
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2016 – Genny · Verona
Senior Creative Leadership. Defining and structuring women's ready-to-wear collections from concept to final execution — driving collection architecture and the alignment between brand identity, product development and commercial positioning.
View Genny →
Current
Based across
Milan · Paris · Madrid
Design Language
Five pillars
Purity
Her work returns always to purity, clean lines, and reduction — stripping away the unnecessary to reveal the essential.
Sophistication
Precise, controlled, elegant, and often architectural. Beauty through restraint — never through excess.
Emotion
Objects that create a bond. Jewelry conceived as a carrier of timeless emotion between the piece and the woman who wears it.
Duality
Light and darkness, power and fragility, harmony and conflict. Tension between opposing forces as a creative engine.
Feminine Strength
The muse is always the modern, independent, confident woman — comfortable in her own skin and unapologetic in her choices.
"Jewelry is a matter of
timeless emotions."
Fine Jewelry
A symbolic universe
After years designing across ready-to-wear, accessories, and the identities of fashion's great houses, Ortiz described jewelry as a natural next step — a more intimate form of design. Her fine jewelry line, launched in 2013, was first carried by Colette Paris and later by Lane Crawford.
Her pieces draw from a consistent symbolic world: wings and angels, mermaids and moonstones, the dark power of Scorpio. Materials move between yellow gold, black gold, black diamonds, white diamonds, rubies, mother-of-pearl, and moonstones discovered during travels in Sri Lanka.
The Mermaids Collection was born from the relationship between the moon and the sea. The Scorpio collection works in 18k gold with rubies and nano-ceramic coating. The first pieces — the Angel Ring, the Angel Earring — established the collection's founding concept: objects that carry symbolic weight and emotional resonance, made to live on the body, not under glass.
Collections
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2013 Angels & Wings
Gold, black diamonds, brown diamonds — the founding collection.
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