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Jewelry Designer Mana Bernardes

Mana Bernardes is a Brazilian designer whose mantra may as well be, “Reduce, Reuse, Rejewel”. Certainly, she is not the first person to incorporate banal objects into the world of fashion, but there is a level of simplicity and sophistication in her work that is surprising given her typical raw materials such as toothpicks, hair clips or PET bottles.

Although pricier elements like pearls are sometimes fused with humbler materials, there is little effort to mask the origins of the latter. In fact, it is by fully embracing the physical properties of the various bits of plastic, metal or glass that Mana creates original and striking designs which challenge our notions on the durability and intrinsic value of everyday objects usually destined to be discarded without hesitation.

From TOUCH:

Mana
Bernardes is a young jewelry designer, poet, and visual artist from Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil. Her interests and aptitudes in art and design
formed at an early age and continue to develop and transform. She
participated as “Design + Social,” organized by the Institute of PVC in
Rio de Janeiro, curated and produced the exhibition “Estampa de cada
Rosto” at Lurix Gallery in Rio and also exhibited “Fashion without
Frontiers” at Sao Paulo Fashion Week SPFW. In 2005, the Campana
brothers invited her to participate in the exhibition “J’en Rêve” at
the Cartier Foundation in France where she displayed an 8-meter mobile
and her video art piece, “Connecting through the Cord.” which was also
included in the commemorative exhibition of I.D. magazine.