Paula Gerbase Lays Out New Imaginative and prescient for Georg Jensen

LONDON — In her new function as artistic director of Georg Jensen, Paula Gerbase desires to deliver glory to the storied Danish silverware and jewellery model.

Because the chief of the model’s turnaround effort, Gerbase is tasked with creating a visible id, overseeing design throughout all product classes and related collaborations, and the path of all consumer-facing touchpoints, each digital and bodily.

Gerbase, a Brazil-born, Switzerland-raised designer who served as inventive director of John Lobb between 2014 and 2020, was approached by the model’s new proprietor, Fiskars Group, earlier this 12 months.

The Finnish life-style and homeware big, which additionally owns manufacturers like Royal Copenhagen, Waterford and Wedgwood, bought Georg Jensen for 151.5 million euros final 12 months.

The designer, who began her profession at Savile Row tailor Hardy Amies and launched the style label 1205 in 2010, mentioned her deal with materials, high quality and craftsmanship, and a respect for the previous, helped her land the place.

“The intention right here is to look again at Georg Jensen between 1904 and the Nineteen Eighties when it was a really distinctive Danish luxurious home, spanning not simply jewellery and residence but in addition works in glass and ceramics. They’ve completed all of it, and the span of attain that the corporate has had previously has been a lot wider than it presently is. There’s an actual wealth of fabric and heritage to attract from. I noticed an enormous potential on this,” mentioned Gerbase over a name, throughout which the sound of silver hammering might be heard from the atelier below her Copenhagen workplace.

The designer mentioned she has embellished her workplace wall with greater than 1,000 archival gadgets, equivalent to paperweights, silver lipsticks and a perfume veil to put on across the neck. She has been diving into the 120-year-old archives with the assist of a resident archivist previously few months to get a way of “what the model was as a real home.”

“There’s a lot eccentricity in its historical past, a lot eclectic spirit of collector. There’s an exquisite image of Picasso admiring a necklace, which is river stones held collectively by a silver thread. There’s a lot artistry in the home, and a hyperlink with artists, supporting Scandinavian artists and craftsmen that maybe has not been checked out for a really very long time,” she added.

Gerbase’s first assortment for Georg Jensen will launch on Friday.

She picked 5 motifs that replicate the model’s involvement in key design actions of the previous century — artwork deco, artwork nouveau, functionalist, naturalism and modernism — and reinterpreted them as its first silver equipment, designed to operate as key chains, bag charms or wearable items.

“In the course of the summer time, I discovered an exquisite chain with an object from 1910. I suppose it was supposed as a key chain, however I instantly hooked up this to my belt loop on my denims and simply began carrying it round. And it simply felt so attention-grabbing that one thing vintage felt so related to adorn different items that maybe weren’t so rarefied,” mentioned Gerbase.

“Usually the notion of silver may be very white gloves, you place it within the cupboard, shut the glass, after which solely deliver it out on particular events. However truly, silver may be dwelling with the on a regular basis, and be a automobile for self-expression,” she continued.

Just a few extra tasks will come subsequent 12 months.

One can be a homeware vary that includes a wider vary of supplies past silver. One will have a good time the model’s artisanal silver know-how with a group of up to date silver items. A jewellery-focused line, in addition to a scent vary, will come towards the top of 2025.

Gerbase mentioned she loves the thought of increasing the model into extra classes: glass, ceramic and textile-heavy homeware items that contain conventional Danish strategies like rattan and braiding.

She additionally confirmed that the brand new Georg Jensen will make its first major introduction at Milan’s Salone del Cell subsequent 12 months.

As of 2024, the model operates round 100 factors of sale worldwide, 65 of that are instantly managed shops. A brand new model id will begin to roll out throughout its areas, in addition to on-line from 2025.

“There’s a lot potential. The unique Georg Jensen shops from the Fifties had been designed by this unbelievable Danish architect referred to as Finn Juhl. They had been handled as residences in essentially the most stunning expressionate means. So it’s actually about bringing the shopper alongside to a journey of an intimate area. That’s the place we can be leaning into,” mentioned Gerbase.

Gerbase’s namesake multidisciplinary design studio, which provides residence items, equipment and attire, will live on whereas she leads the Georg Jensen workforce in Copenhagen to write down a brand new chapter.