There have been many jewelry brands making waves and one of them is Mutter, founded by Helena Vieira. In an interview with HYPEBAE, Vieira discusses her journey into jewelry and more.
When asked about how Mutter was launched and how she got involved in jewelry, Vieira said, "It wasn’t a linear path. I took a beginner’s [jewelry-making] course [in Lisbon] for a few weeks and I loved it, but with a degree to finish and a new found love for photography, I didn’t think about jewelry again until I was living in London four or five years later. By that point in my life, I was trying to carve a path of my own, one in which I felt connected to my ancestry, to strong women and to my passion for working with metal. It took experimenting with metal in different ways and slowly uncovering memories of spending time at my grandmother’s home with my mother, digging through their past in their wardrobes and jewelry drawers. I wanted to be enmeshed in that world on a daily basis and share it with others."
"I developed an obsession for blades pretty early on in my work with metal," said Vieira when asked about the correlation between her background in metal smithing and her current work in jewelry. "They are sensual and deadly and hold a tension that I am drawn to. The act of forging is incredibly powerful in a metaphysical sense, from the chemical elements in steel to the act of using fire and water to anneal and quench. Striking while the iron is hot using the right amount of balance, strength and precision feels like poetry in motion and I try to encapsulate that battered quality into my designs, even when I am carving them in wax."
"I think my work holds a tension between the sensual, the bold and the odd," said Vieira about what inspires her designs. "Each collection focuses on different experiences in my life, from clean lines drawn from industrial components (my background in Product Design), to designing forged and mudlarked inspired objects (my affinity with metal smithing and ancient jewelry), to feeling isolated in the first lockdown and carving penises out of wax as a way to invoke human connection. This current collection with women blossoming out of flowers is how I wanted to feel emerging into spring after last winter’s lockdown."
Information originally sourced from HYPEBAE.
