The Brazil project

H. Stern launches two new jewelry collections designed and inspired by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and modern dance troupe Grupo Corpo at Adora.

When you hear the word“Brazilian” you might think Gisele Bündchen, Ronaldo or even waxing, but Brazil is about so much more than supermodels, soccer stars and hair-removal methods.

A hub of art and culture, it’s the birthplace of Oscar Niemeyer, Brazil’s most famous architect, considered one of the most influential names in international modern architecture.

It’s also the home base of Grupo Corpo, a dance company known for staging modern, edgy dance spectacles.

Which is why jewelry house H. Stern is going back to its roots. The Brazilian brand, which continuously seeks new sources of inspiration in the worlds of art, architecture and culture, has launched two new jewelry collections designed and inspired by the famous architect and dance troupe at Adora, its exclusive distributor in the Philippines.

Petal attraction: Architect Niemeyer’s sketch of a hand holding a flower was the inspiration behind his “Flower” line. H. Stern is available only at Adora in Greenbelt 5.

Niemeyer was responsible for building Brasilia, the country’s capital constructed in the late ’50s, and many other iconic buildings including ONU’s headquarters in New York, a collaboration with French master Le Corbusier.

Curves, which have been Niemeyer’s passion over the course of a lifetime, are the inspiration behind the collection. They define the 103-year-old architect’s own style: the lightness of curved forms that create spaces full of harmony, grace and elegance.

“It’s not the right angle that attracts me, nor is the straight line, hard, inflexible, created by man,” Niemeyer writes in his Poema da Curva (The Curve Poem). “What attracts me is the free and sensual curve, the curve I find in my country’s mountains, in the sinuous course of its rivers, in the ocean waves, in a woman’s body. The whole universe is made of curves, the curved universe of Einstein.”

Roberto Stern, H. Stern’s president and creative director, was the one who initiated the H. Stern by Oscar Niemeyer Collection. Stern has always given special emphasis on organic and sinuous forms in jewelry. “We do not find straight lines in nature, therefore I like asymmetry and irregular contours, which are more human and natural,” said Stern. It was this shared passion with the architect that led Stern to launch the collection. 

For the first time, Niemeyer personally approved a collection of jewelry created in his honor, and, based on his own sketches, his curved lines. Several of the designs include pieces inspired by the female form. “The jewels are extremely pretty and very light,” the architect said. “It’s incredible how they have managed to exactly replicate my designs. The people who made these jewels are very talented!”

While Niemeyer appears to bend straight lines in his concrete structures, transforming curves into a natural solution for his creations, H. Stern does the same with gold and diamonds. Besides the curving contours, empty spaces — so prized by the architect in his concrete sculptures — are also reflected in the jewelry. Rings, bracelets and earrings emphasize simple lines, interspersed with empty spaces.

Natural curves: H. Stern’s 3D pieces go beyond jewelry into the realm of art.

The H. Stern Collection by Oscar Niemeyer includes jewelry in gold and diamonds, composed of six different lines and named for some of his works and famous projects:

Brasília

The architecture of the city of Brasilia — the concave and convex domes that epitomize the building of the National Congress — gave form to a yellow-gold bracelet, in which continuous lines and empty spaces encircle the female wrist in a light, sensual way. The jewel reconstructs Niemeyer’s 1958 plan for what was to become one of the most beautiful scenes of the federal capital and one of his 35 works to be listed by the Historical Heritage of the country. Besides the bracelet, there are also earrings in which opposite curves join at the tips, with singular lightness.

Pampulha

The inspiration for this line comes from the sinuous design of the roof of the São Francisco de Assisi church in Pampulha, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The project, created by Niemeyer in the 1940s, was highly controversial due to its bold forms. “I covered it with curves, all kinds of curves, as a statement against the architecture characterized by straight lines that predominated up until then,” says Niemeyer. H. Stern reproduced the wavy design of this emblematic work in rings, earrings and bracelets in white gold and diamonds.

Copan

The iconic Copan building in São Paulo has hovered like a wave on the horizon of the metropolis since the 1950s, contrasting with the straight angles that predominate in the local architecture. It was the wavy, striking design that was the inspiration behind the Copan jewelry collection, with rings in wavy forms and a voluminous yellow-gold bracelet.

Sketch

On the wall of Niemeyer’s office is a drawing of two curved, perpendicular lines appearing to form the sketch for one of the consistently bold columns of his buildings. This sketch was interpreted by H. Stern in a pair of white gold-and-diamond earrings in which the metal line folds between the frontal part and behind the earlobe.

Curves

Niemeyer’s preference for fluid, sinuous lines is seen in this jewelry collection. In the earrings, the strands form wavy layers, one on top of the other. The design explores one of the principle elements of architecture: perspective. The visual impression given differs depending on which angle the jewelry is viewed from.

Flower

Niemeyer’s sketch of a hand holding a flower with four leaves provided the inspiration for pendants and a bracelet in yellow gold. The gold flowers are hollow, in reference to Niemeyer’s appreciation for unfilled areas. “Architecture is about overcoming spaces ... I cannot understand those who are afraid of open spaces. Space is part of architecture.”

It’s also part of the jewelry, which has been worn by curvy celebrities like Jessica Simpson, Vanessa Minnillo, Gretchen Mol, Emmy Rossum, and Gugu Mbatha.

Grupo Corpo

If Oscar Niemeyer for H. Stern is all about curves, the Grupo Corpo collection is all about movement and ethereal forms. Jewelry that dances? You bet.

Perhaps it was the modern dance troupe’s subtle yet edgy creativity and out-of-the-box thinking that drew the jeweler’s attention, the latest collaboration in a series that began in the ’80s with Catherine Deneuve, and includes the world-famous jewelry line inspired by Diane von Furstenberg.

H. Stern+GrupoCorpo is a new collection of modern, light, and airy jewels, full of contrasting textures and sinuous lines that resemble the human body in movement. After all, “corpo” means “body” in Portuguese.

Developing the project took the H. Stern creative team from Rio and Sao Paulo to the city of Belo Horizonte, where Grupo Corpo was founded in 1975 and is still based today. They studied all aspects of the modern-dance productions, from each ballet’s theme and choreography to costume and set design. Choreography and costumes were translated into finishing techniques and textures: drops of perspiration became diamonds, and the dancers’ chiseled bodies morphed into twisted surfaces and sinuous lines.  

The result is a group of avant-garde jewels in 18K yellow and noble gold fitted with diamonds and monochromatic gemstones like blue topaz, citrine, garnet, amethyst, and cognac diamonds. Each piece expresses fluidity of movement in solid form.

Jewels inspired by the Benguelé ballet, which presents Brazilian music and popular dance influences, were transformed into long and articulated earrings, bracelets, and necklace in which gold discs were finished with the texture of arid, desert-like soil, signifying the African ancestry that permeates Brazilian culture and history.

Three bold rings made of intertwined gold lines were inspired by the romantic ballet Lecuona, which features 12 pas-de-deux.

Rings, earrings and a bracelet shaped like gold roses were inspired by the scenery of the ballet Nazareth, which presented large, metallic roses.

A patchwork made of several colorful flowers that adorned the stage for the Grupo Corpo 21 Ballet inspired H. Stern designers to create earrings and a pendant in which a golden flower looks like a ballet dancer’s skirt, with plenty of sinuous layers.

Earrings from the Grupo Corpo collection were seen on Twilight star Ashley Greene, while Selena Gomez sported the ring in yellow and noble gold.

Other Hollywood superstars and style icons who have walked the red carpet or appeared on magazine covers adorned in H. Stern are Angelina Jolie, Cate Blanchett, Halle Berry, Rihanna, Eva Longoria, Debra Messing and Drew Barrymore.

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In the Philippines, H. Stern is only available at Adora, on the second and third levels of Greenbelt 5, Ayala Center, Makati.