Upon passing through the small door of the jewelry designer’s studio Sophie Buhai (Los Angeles, 42 years old), the first thing that catches your attention is the light. Filtered by an olive tree located in front of the main window, the Angelina luminosity plays with the very long light ecru curtains, with the objects, few and chosen; with the movements of the staff, who go up and down the four floors of the building, and with the creator’s jewelry. Also with the calm tone of voice of Buhai herself. No one would say that in that narrow house in Silver Lake, one of the most sought-after neighborhoods in Los Angeles, central and green, hides the studio of one of the ideologues of today’s jewelry. Sophie Buhai graduated from the New York school Parsons in 2003 and, three years later, co-founded the fashion brand Vena Cava with her partner Lisa Mayock. Her adventure in textiles ended in 2013 and, she says, she does not intend to return. Two years later, silver jewelry came into her life and today, Ella Buhai has conquered her own space from which she does not plan to move.
The designer says that silver has always been present in her life. That her grandmother and her “eccentric aunts” taught her that her style goes beyond diamonds, expensive materials and even fashions: when she started, almost a decade ago, they wore the charms golden and tiny, but she opted for silver, large and with robust shapes. She was right, and clients like Michelle Obama, Jennifer Lopez and Nicole Kidman attest to this. “Designing with silver is a statement of intent,” she says. It is her fetish material, although for some seasons she has been using some gold, semi-precious stones and pearls. Buhai designs earrings, geometric bracelets or delicate necklaces. Also for men. And also objects: flasks, lighters, combs as if inherited from an elegant grandmother from the 1930s, cigarette holders, shell-shaped pill boxes, butter knives and even toothpicks. “Turning these objects into sculptures is giving them a sense of humor,” she says.
There is also a certain sculptural vocation in his new studio, located in a building, between postmodern and “Spanish style”, built in 1986. “We wanted something Bauhaus-type, close to modern architecture, but not so much from the twenties and thirties, so literal”. After acquiring it, for a couple of months they cleaned, painted, removed the old carpet and left “the structure in the bones, so that the essence could be seen,” he says. The objects influence this clarity of ideas: a display case from the mid-20th century, an Italian semicircular sofa in olive green from the 1930s, an engraving on the stone fireplace, a stretcher table covered by a rug found in a Paris market. on which rests a black vase and a low table made of thick glass designed by her friend Gabriela Rosales, owner of the Los Angeles gallery. Formative Modern. “We created the ground floor together, it was his first interior design project. I wanted it to be very connected to my pieces, to be very 20th century. “I liked the idea of working with a local business, and with a woman,” says this admirer of “incredible women like Tina Chow, Elsa Peretti or the Swedish Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe.”
That same philosophy permeates their business: small (there are just eight people), local (their pieces are designed in Silver Lake and take shape, first in wax and then in silver, in workshops of local artisans in the city, with a prestigious jewelry district ) and commanded by a woman. And with a majority team of women that was joined four years ago by her husband, Josh Sussman, a former criminal lawyer who is now in charge of managing the business. The couple married in 2014 and have two children. “My daughter says she loves jewelry and she’s going to be a designer,” says Sophie, “but the boy has no interest in this,” she laughs.
It was Sussman who found this bungalow of what Californians call Spanish style, after months of searching. “The brand first was a kind of project in the basement of the house,” says Buhai. “I am from here. I love this town. I have been working at home for eight years, in an adjacent area. Josh started looking, he was very feisty because we didn’t have much of a budget. We wanted to be in this area because we live nearby, and we wanted a place… that wasn’t too corporate. [risas]”. Nothing gray, with plastic and computers? “Nothing, nothing like that,” she laughs again. Space was difficult to find. The renovation was small, and they had one advantage: electricity. With large windows in the front and also windows in the back rooms, light floods the place. “The light is incredible,” Sophie often repeats in the talk. “It’s the good thing about Los Angeles, the light and that there is space.”
The place is somewhere between Mediterranean, Parisian – the creator travels three times a year to France, to visit buyers and see museums – and purely Angeleno: “It is a mix of European style, art deco, pieces from some designers, custom-made pieces, antique pieces, objects that we create… jewelry is also decoration.” A mix, like herself, like her work. “I don’t really know what I am, I don’t have a label,” she reflects. “I guess… I guess… I’m a designer.” Without further ado. But she doesn’t want to make clothes, like so many other designers. That stage was far away. She likes to do things, many, different, not always similar, but not common. “I hadn’t thought about it but yes, jewelry is an intersection of many things. It is very personal, they are talismans, they accompany you when you use them and carry them.”
Their final clients are also, for the most part, women. “They are intellectual and sophisticated, but not at all pretentious,” she defines them. “From small-town college professors to doctors or lawyers to Park Avenue ladies; from very old women to university students who gift themselves a piece when they graduate. I think it’s interesting.” She herself brings up the question of prices. Her simplest earrings start at $250; Most of her wearable pieces are between 600 and 900, although they can go up to 2,000. “There are pieces that have a higher price, but others, like a pair of earrings, that are at a lower price, because I know that there are clients who save a year for them, but can still afford them. It’s good to have a price range, it’s important to me. I think fine jewelry is sometimes very exclusive, so I have always admired designers who have been able to create at normal prices.”
Buhai seeks a balance between normal prices and handmade, artisanal and creative pieces that last. He draws them, one by one, and carves them in wax before turning them into silver. “And with the wax we adjust, adding more and less, removing here and adding there. It is not easy to always be involved in the entire process, there is a person on my team who is in charge of that final development. It is done with great care, I have to personally work on each piece, there is no design team here,” he states. “We develop many pieces and I would like to make more categories, but we want to control the quality.” Categories? “I would like to make lamps, and chairs, and tables, and countertops,” his eyes light up, “there I would also have to look for good partners. They are pieces for life and quality is important. And also sustainability.”
Buhai’s studio is on the top floor of the building. There he designs among books by Man Ray, Picasso and Fortuny stacked on the floor, with boards full of sketches and photos that inspire him, combs, forks, pre-Columbian jewelry. For decoration, a silver vase on the fireplace and a Pascal Mourgue chair in a corner. Buhai dreams of both lamps and making watches. And so that his pieces last. This is how he sees his future: traveling to Vienna or Paris, visiting museums, spending hours in libraries. And working calmly, in the light that comes through the olive tree at the door.
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