I love listening. It is one of the only spaces where you can be still and moved at the same time. — Nayyirah Waheed — Wednesday July 23rd — —

“What art does — maybe what it does most completely — is tell us, make us feel that what we think we know, we don’t. There are whole worlds around us that we’ve never glimpsed.” Greil Marcus — Wednesday July 23rd — —

The idea is to die young as late as possible. — Ashley Montagu — Wednesday July 23rd — —

Loha Vete

The Italy-based jewelry label Loha Vete, which was founded by Max Zubari in 2012, is inspired by crime, by taking this rather large associative concept and creating unique and beautifully crafted items in their italian atelier. We still particularly love their most recent, and possibly final, Autumn/Winter 2013 collection which includes a skeleton hand ashtray, a smashed glass bracelet and a bootlace knuckle duster. The equally striking lookbook depicts illustrated people wearing the jewelry, perfectly conveying an aesthetic connotated to crime, which was created by the Paris-based fashion designer and illustrator Evelina Romano.

The Loha Vete brand originally started in 2009 as a clothing line when founder, model turned designer, Max Zubari quit his job as co-designer of the bullet-ridden, and therefore aesthetically in many ways very obvious predecessor, fashion brand Parballe. Loha Vete, in line with the previous brand, specialized in hand-ripped detail and distinct distressed elements, continuing what Zubari had done earlier at Parballe. The new brand gained a international following  rather quickly, very likely because Zubari at that point was a talked about player from the fashion-genre of disheveled glamour. For the Spring/Summer 2013 season Zubari decided a full jewelry line would be added to the brand, which was followed up half a year later by the most recent, with both lookbooks illustrated by the very talented Romano.

From crime to the sublime

All the products in the line are made out of reclaimed silver and gold procured from auction houses and police seizures (within the overall theme) around the world, the metals are reformed and recast in Italy into the now striking jewelley pieces. Spoils from Rio to Rome, “Rolexes in Manhattan to silverware in Mayfair,” all are melted down in Loha Vete’s atelier in Italy and stored as bullion bricks before being recast as bleeding-edge pieces of jewelry, from rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings and that crazy skeleton hand ashtray.

Evelina Romano is a Paris-based fashion illustrator and womenswear designer. Until 2012 she studied Womenswear at the London College of Fashion with a strong focus on illustration, after which she joined the International Fashion Design Postgraduate Program with a Major in garments at the L’Institut Français de la Mode. Evelina is inspired by bohemian styles, oriental references and cross-cultural design. Her explorations are strongly illustrative and realistic with a fusion of techniques. They are about juxtaposition, combinations of stylistic references, eras and blending ideas. Although her focus seems to be on design at the moment, we also hope to see more of her distinct style of illustration in the future.

For more information see here.