Jadeite in Full Colour: Inside Asprey and Silvia Furmanovich’s New Collection

Crafted in wood marquetry, Silvia Furmanovich’s Wild Mushroom earrings are a riot of colour. Curving bands of plum, raspberry, ochre, turquoise and brown wood veneers sweep across them in arcs, topped by pink and lavender jadeite cabochons and a fine line of diamonds. They set the tone for the Brazilian designer’s new capsule collection for Asprey, which is playful, richly coloured and full of unexpected materials. At the centre of every jewel is rare jadeite from Asprey’s own collection, presented in a myriad of hues. 

The Many Colours of Jadeite

Silvia Furmanovich: The Brazilian Jeweller

Asprey and Furmanovich first collaborated in October 2022 on Giants of the Amazon, a collection for the home. Eight designs across boxes, picture frames and vide poches combined salvaged Brazilian woods and hand-cut marquetry with sterling-silver elements made by Asprey’s silversmiths in London. 

The Art of Imitating Nature

Among the six pairs of earrings and single cuff that make up the capsule collection, the Wild Orchid earrings are so lifelike they could almost be mistaken for real flowers. Their pale pink petals deepen to raspberry, with darker mottling running across their surface. They overlap and curl away from the ear, their folds and delicate edges giving the flowers remarkable depth. At the centre of each bloom sits a pink jadeite cabochon. Incredibly, all of this is achieved in wood.

In the Cascade earrings, Furmanovich turns to an entirely different craft. Vivid orange jadeite cabochons sit among tiny purple flowers, each woven from horsehair and finished with a small diamond at its centre. Furmanovich first encountered the technique – known locally as crin – in rural Chile, where the craft is traditionally passed from mother to daughter. Fine strands of hair are wrapped around a plant-fibre framework and woven into miniature blossoms that unfurl around the jadeite. The intense combination of orange and purple brings to mind the colours of tropical flowers.

The Sacred Leaf cuff explores darker, earthier tones. Carved from braúna wood from Furmanovich’s native Brazil, it takes the form of a broad leaf, its pronounced veins crossed by narrow diamond-set lines radiating from a green jadeite cabochon. The deep brown of the wood makes the green jadeite appear all the more luminous.

The same wood takes on very different forms in two pairs of earrings. In the Sacred Leaf earrings, deep fluting radiates from green jadeite cabochons, the edges picked out in diamonds. In the Cherry Blossom earrings, braúna wood becomes a network of branches, combined with agate, red and white jadeite and diamonds.

The Begonia Leaf earrings offer another remarkable example of Furmanovich’s imaginative use of marquetry. Beneath a saturated green jadeite cabochon, a broad leaf is patterned in crimson and green and crossed by a spiral of diamonds. The veneers reproduce the markings of a begonia so convincingly that the surface initially looks painted.

Keeping Ancient Crafts Alive

For me, the Wild Orchid earrings are the stars of the collection. It's difficult to believe that their lifelike petals are made entirely from wood. Behind these jewels are artisans whose skills have been passed down through generations, from the woodworkers of Brazil to the women who weave horsehair in rural Chile. With traditional crafts such as these increasingly under threat, Furmanovich’s collaboration with Asprey brings renewed attention to the extraordinary craftsmanship involved – and the importance of ensuring these skills they are not lost.