One of the hottest jewelry brands comes from two Miami-based designers. Jewelry brand Éliou had achieved some notoriety when Harry Styles sported one of their necklaces. In an interview with L'OFFICIEL, Éliou's designers, Duda Teixeira and Cristy Mantilla, talked about the founding of their brand and more.
When asked about the start of the brand and the origin of its unique name, Duda Teixeira said, "We have been best friends since we were seven years old and creative partners basically since then. Cristy and I worked as creative directors and stylists for over seven years and launched our own creative agency when Éliou came to life as, what was then, just a way to create jewelry and custom pieces for our photoshoots at the time. Our initial instinct was always to get crafty and bring our clients something exclusive and unique. After every shoot or project the question as to where it can be bought always arose."
"Eventually, the questions were so frequent that it became clear to us that we needed to flip our career focus and let the jewelry “project” be the focus of our time, and so Éliou was born," added Mantilla. "Éliou is a word that we invented to feel like a made-up place that might be a small town on the coast of Italy, or the French Riviera. It’s a place that embodies the perfect vacation."
Teixeira concluded, "Sometimes, we think of Éliou as a person too, someone who lives this lifestyle and embodies the spirit of the brand and grew up next to the ocean, like we did."
"It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what inspires our collections because our inspirations are drawn by so many little things," said Teixeira regarding the inspirations for the Éliou seasonal collections. "It usually stems from designing something we’d want to wear for ourselves and grows from there. We’ll also often get ideas for pieces while traveling and experiencing different cultures and colors, but one of my favorite pieces was literally born out of a thought I had once in the shower. Sometimes it’s just as simple as that. "
What’s creepy is that I had a similar idea for a piece that week I had planned to work on and when Duda got out of the shower and told me about a design she’d just thought of, I was like, “Okay, cool, glad we’re on the same page, again.” That’s genuinely just how it is. She’ll start with something and I’ll end it or vice versa. We’re inspired by each other's ideas and our designs are a huge blend of that. Growing up in Miami also meant that the ocean was our playground. Our first collection had a heavy seashell focus but so many different elements from nature inspire our pieces," said Mantilla.
Information originally sourced from L'OFFICIEL.
