New collection! Carmen

Time has come to write again, now to present you a new project in which we have been working a lot over the last 6 months. Finally, here it is!

Carmen Collection

In this collection we continue to honour women, in this case Carmen Herrera, Cuban minimalist artist, who sold her first painting at 89 years old. Carmen inspires us because she is an authentic warrior, because she is persistent, because she never gave up and because she shows the world that women’s age does not matter.

We have chosen Carmen for our collection as a tribute to women in all their ages, to talk about time, the theme around which our brand conception revolves. That is why the Carmen collection talks about the beauty of the passing of time and intents to question the established canons of beauty: youth, perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfect partner.

Through artisan work, which expresses imperfection, like life, like people, we also want to put our emphasis on the authenticity and truth which lies behind the imperfection and diversity.

Carmen was also a pioneer of minimalism, but her status as a woman and an immigrant (Cuban in the United States) prevented her work from being recognized until just a decade ago. His geometric obsession inspires us formally and conceptually. At the time when Pollock’s abstract expressionism triumphed, Carmen expressed herself with straight lines and pure colours. It differs from the latter minimalists in that she always made use of painting and always worked in an artisanal way, unlike Donald Judd, Flavin or Le Witt whose work is fundamentally industrial.

Our jewels are also expressed through geometries and colours and we find in Carmen’s formal work and in her attitude towards life a reference and source of inspiration.

Is it a Diamond Worthy?

The diamond has historically been considered a symbol of perseverance, virtue and fidelity and, of course, of power. It was at the 50s that the popular slogan “a diamond is forever” was popularized in Spain and its symbolism was added to that of eternity.

Through its symbolism as a timeless element, in our line “Is a diamond worthy?” we have created our own diamond as a tribute to the beauty of the passing of time and experience, in a society that exalts the fast and young above all.

We consciously choose a non-diamond diamond, that is to say symbolic, to question the use of the diamond as the king of jewellery, for being associated with the exploitation of people and environment in other parts of the world. Is it worth it?

Eternity

With the image of the wheel many cultures symbolize the cosmos: the perfection of the circle and its continuous rotation and reiteration of the cycles, which is intrinsic to life. In our line “Eternity” each of the stages of the wheel is equally important, none stands out above the others. Unlike the contemporary culture in which only youth is visible, in which perfection is associated with an unattainable ideal, our cosmic wheel, eternal and imperfect, symbolizes the relevance of each of the stages of life, all of them different but equally beautiful.

This campaign was a collaborative creative work with our beloved:

• Mar Docavo: photography
• Virginia Bruni: styling
• Andrea Trenado: make-up and hair

Li Jewels taking care of production and art direction, we would like to stand out the collaboration of Jimenez, Juanma by El Cuco, Eva vs María, Aniela Parys and Ardenuy. 

We truly feel the need to thank them, because we are in the same boat. Slow fashion, independent design, conscious fashion, whatever you want to call it, it is hard to go on and the nicest thing to have is our colleagues support.

In the end, we all have a common mission, vision and project: we aim at changing the paradigm of fashion world. It is a titanic task, of course, maybe unachievable, but it is the strongest reason why collaboration has to be our DNA (you won’t believe it, but not always happen that way).

Without further delay, we would love to hear about your impressions!

Lucía.