A Jeweller's Journey toward Sustainability Starts with Small Steps

Sometimes the most show-stopping jewelry isn’t about the precious stones, but about the craftsmanship involved to create the piece. In the last five years, Brazilian jewelry designer Silvia Furmanovich has acquired a devoted clientele who appreciate her commitment to wood marquetry and her knack for recycling vintage pieces – such as a cinnabar snuff bottles or a Japanese netsuke — to create a new heirloom piece.

 Her jewelry is also often embellished with precious and semi-precious stones, though the designer says she is becoming more sensitive to issues such as where and how they are sourced, and is particularly focused on sustainability.

 “I am trying, but it’s a work in progress. At this stage it’s still extremely difficult to be able to tell clients exactly, 100% where the stones come from. I’m still very much dependent on my suppliers to give me that information. Even in Brazil where I know my stone supplies, they won’t give me a 100% certificate. I have to do what I can with what I have. But it will come with time, the industry will move in the right direction,” she says.

 Most recently she teamed up with Canadamark to create a capsule collection using certified Canadian CanadaMark diamonds to embellish a few of her wood marquetry pieces. Canadamark is owned by Dominion Diamond Mines, a Canadian diamond mining company with ownership interest in two mines (Ekati and Diavik) in Canada’s Northwest Territories. All of its diamonds are traceable from these two mines, which Dominion says operates in a sustainable manner. Furmanovich is planning to visit the mines and learn more, so she can talk about her pieces more knowledgeably with her clients.

 For that mini-collection, Furmanovich’s inspiration came from a Japanese maple leaf pattern found on an obi—the sash worn with traditional kimonos—from the Meiji period, and rendered the leaf as a gold ring using a marquetry of Japanese maple wood, while also using it as a pattern on a large cuff bracelet.

“We are hearing a lot about sustainability of materials, and I think that with time clients will want to know, before they buy something where everything came from. I believe the future is going in that direction. Of course, not everything I make uses these diamonds, but it’s a start, and you have to start somewhere,” she says. 

Furmanovich candidly admits that sustainability was never high on her agenda previously, “but something changed after I started working with wood marquetry five years ago.”

 Regularly going deep into the Amazonian rainforest to meet the craftsmen that work on her pieces, she became more aware of the impact of deforestation and the need to protect the environment. Now, she’s started to work with suppliers that are also looking to produce wood sustainably.

 “By choosing to work with recycled wood that has been foraged in the jungle, we’re already taking a step in the right direction,” she points out, adding that while the indigenous wood is often treated to enliven its colors, it is done naturally using roots and other pigments.

 Furmanovich grew up in a family of goldsmiths. Her Italian great-grandfather, a Rome goldsmith created sacred objects for the Vatican, and her father used to have his goldsmith studio at home. Yet she never really showed any interest in goldsmithing herself until her 40s when, married with kids, she took a workshop “for fun.” Reconnecting with her roots, she decided to pursue an entire course, while also studying gemology. She eventually founded her business in 1998.

 Though her jewelry creations have evolved over the years, her interest in craftsmanship has remained throughout: “Actually, I’m not attracted by the materials, but what you can do with them. I believe I can bring more value to a piece with workmanship of the human hands, the time that it takes to create the work.”

 Five years ago she teamed up with a well-known wood artist in Brazil, who usually works on large-scale projects, but agreed to help her train 25 craftsmen in the art of miniature marquetry using native wood such as red muirapiranga, yellow tatajuba, and blue carvalho. “The technique is always evolving and improving. First we started with marquetry on a flat surface, then last year, we moved toward marquetry on a three-dimensional surfaces for our Botanical collection, it was very technically challenging.”

 For her last collection, just unveiled at Couture Show, the luxury jewelry industry tradeshow in Las Vegas, Furmanovich found inspiration in the patterns from swatch books of obi fabric fragments dating from the Meiji Period (1866-1912), which she had discovered in a New York boutique. The woven silk, called nishijin, is an iconic textile with richly colored and golden threads.

 The Obi collection uses a mix of miniature painting (created by Indian miniaturists in Rajasthan) and wood marquetry to render some of the patterns found on these rich-looking fabrics, with the designer delving into a world of cranes, clouds, bamboo shoots, peonies and chrysanthemums.

 Beyond the jewelry, Furmanovich has also created a collection of minaudières that will debut at Bergdorf Goodman in the autumn. One of them, featuring a crane, won Best in Innovative award at Couture for its incorporation of different obi fabrics with wood marquetry extending the patterns.

 While working on the collection, Furmanovich traveled to Japan to research additional forms of craftsmanship. Beyond the pieces inspired by Japanese textiles, some designs also incorporate nerikomi – a Japanese method of creating marbled patterns with colored clay, woven bamboo pieces from the city of Beppu and maki-e, a technique made by sprinkling wet lacquer with gold metallic powder.

 For next year’s collections, she is starting on a new project: working with bamboo techniques she discovered in Beppu.

 “Brazil has the largest bamboo plantation in the world, but we don’t have this culture of working with that material. But I really want to use it to create earrings, bracelets, even homeware, because it sits?? beautifully.”

A version of this story first appeared in A: The First Of (August edition)