Silvia
Furmanovich

Silvia Furmanovich is a Brazilian designer working in sculptural fine jewelry from her São Paulo atelier. Her signature is Amazonian wood marquetry — slivers of native Brazilian woods cut, fitted, and inlaid into eighteen-karat gold. No two pieces are identical; the wood grain ensures it.

The wood vocabulary — rosewood, satinwood, zebrawood — composes images of tropical birds, jungle flora, butterflies, and geometric patterns drawn from indigenous Brazilian craft traditions. Diamonds and gemstones are set into the design rather than added on top. Her work, carried at Bergdorf Goodman, is as much ecological document as adornment: nature is not the inspiration. It is the material.

I was on the Couture Awards jury the year Silvia Furmanovich won Best Innovative Use of Materials. What I recognized in the work was Amazonian wood marquetry brought to fine jewelry — a craft language drawn from the Brazilian biome, translated into the body’s scale. We have carried Silvia at Cayen since.