It is difficult to withdraw your eyes looking at Brazilian jewelry – you are instantly fascinated by the play and colors of gems. Many celebrities now prefer to have jewelry pieces right from Brazil’s top-rank brands.
Brazil is getting more and more confident having secured its place among the top three pace-setting nations in jewelry manufacturing. What is the most enticing zest about it? Of course, it is the very hearty design practiced by Latin American jewelers, which is sure to have a significant impact on fashion trends in jewelry. Maybe it is outside of someone’s taste, but the positive side of this success will be the competition, which is likely to please the world with new collections.
The Brazilian Government is very serious about its support for jewelry makers. APEX-Brasil, an agency for export promotion and investments, was founded in 2003 by the Government of Brazil and the Ministry of Development and now is focused on its work to strengthen relations in the international community.
Due to the Nature’s generosity and its deposits of rare gems the country became known as a major center of jewelry design. In Brazil, the minerals mining and processing industry involves over 400,000 people, a figure that shows the huge scale of operations related to precious stones.
Jewelry art in this country is well placed to make, create and experiment.
"The relationship between the shapes and cuts of Brazilian gems originated together with the Brazilian architecture,” - says Regina Machado, a renowned architect and designer with a Master’s degree. “Looking at different geometric shapes of stones, you can understand how they are all different. Unfortunately, such a variety of stone processing techniques cannot be practiced on diamonds because of their high cost."
In her latest edition of "Jewelry Forecast 2013 - Romanticizing," she described jewelry as animate objects. "Each jewelry piece has a soul that lives in harmony within a particular jewelry collection. Romantic spirit adds novelty, individuality and diversity. Romanticism is in the free play of fantasy. Romantic spirit gives value to the mysterious world of distant cultures."
"We feel a kind of nostalgia for the existentialism of the 20th century, it excites our senses and we have much in common with the bohemian poetry and hedonistic past. The design of Brazilian jewelry is evolving toward a personal, unique, non-transferable style. It is thanks to the Brazilian jewelry that we can learn many interesting things," says Regina Machado.
Brazilian jewelry pieces are very bright; they are designed for style-conscious women, freely expressing their emotions, interests, and desires through appearance.
Manoel Pereira Bernardes, the designer and founder of one of the most popular brands in Brazil - Manoel Bernardes - often comes up with intricate shapes of jewelry pieces, using themes from the paintings of modern artists. His concept is described as "the artist philosophy." He tried to explain what the Brazilian style is.
"This is a mix of Indian and European designs. Brazil is a multicultural country, it merged cultures of different worlds, and this influenced the formation of a special Brazilian spirit. The Brazilian style is characterized by non-geometric shapes of stones and large-size jewelry.
It took about 15 years for Brazil to create its own style of jewelry. It all started with three people who were experimenting with the design of Brazilian jewelry. The Brazilian style emerged as a result of these experiments. It should be noted that other countries spent up to 40 years to generate their own jewelry styles. It is also worth mentioning the important task facing all jewelers, which is to keep up with fashion. In my view, Brazilian craftsmen were quite successful in this sense. Brazilian women wear expensive jewelry not for display and not to demonstrate their wealth and status, they value their own individuality and choose jewelry pieces which give them pleasure and a sense of self-confidence.
Still, those who love diamonds will always buy only diamonds. The adult generation here, for example, has always given preference to expensive jewelry graced with diamonds - it is a century-old tradition. This generation was always bent on jewels worn by kings and emperors and had a weak spot for pieces made by jewelers in the revolution period, and generally for all the jewelry in the spirit of old time.
But if you look now at the new generation, at what kind of jewelry they are wearing, it will immediately become quite clear that young people love bright stones regardless of their value. For them, one day is unlike the other one, and they are flaunting the so-called "every day jewelry."
It has become popular to copy Italian jewelry at the Chinese, Indian, and Turkish factories, and in this respect we are far away from it all. Brazilian jewelry manufacturers do not copy anyone, we can even say the opposite - we are being copied. Brazil is not intended for mass production. As soon as such copies appear in the international market, we have to work on new ideas and create new collections, coming up with something new every year.
In recent years, Brazilian jewelers started to reach out to the Russian market, viewing it as one of the most promising. For several years, we have partnered with Gold of Brazil, a Russian company, which is the exclusive distributor of Brazil’s leading jewelry brands. Five years ago, several leading brands agreed to the terms of that contract. This company was the first to believe in Brazilian jewelry and successfully led us to the Russian market, where we got a lot of positive results. It was the Russian people with their rich Ural gems that could truly appreciate and understand the concept of Brazilian stones.
After all, what is your first thought when you happen to look at Brazilian jewelry pieces? What a beautiful stone! What gems!" Manoel summed up, smiling.
Veronica Novoselova, Rough&Polished, from Brazil
