Silvia Furmanovich Debuts Fauna Collection Blending Marquetry, Beetle Wings, Animal Prints

Silvia Furmanovich has always drawn her most compelling material from the world outside her studio window, or more accurately, from whatever window she happened to be looking through during her latest journey. Her new Fauna capsule, a collection spanning jewels, clutches, and fine home goods, channels the animal kingdom through two techniques she had never combined in quite this way before: hand-cut wood veneer marquetry rendered in zebra, leopard, and tiger patterns, and iridescent beetle wings worked into her signature butterfly-style pieces.

Both are firsts for the Brazilian designer. The zebra, leopard, and tiger motifs represent her initial venture into animal-print territory, interpreted not through paint or enamel but through the exacting, meditative process of marquetry, a 16th-century European technique that builds images from slivers of wood veneer. The beetle wing work extends a thread she has been pulling for some time: her broader fascination with the scarab, whose symbolism in pharaonic Egypt centers on the renewal of life, surfaces here as a material rather than a reference.

The jewelry in Fauna includes rings, earrings, cuff bracelets, and bead-woven bracelets, with at least one confirmed example pairing the two traditions: marquetry earrings in a zebra motif with diamond and 18-karat yellow gold accents. That combination, fine metalsmithing against the warmth of hand-cut veneer, suggests a deliberate tension between the organic and the precious. Prices across the collection are listed on request, placing Fauna in a luxury tier consistent with Furmanovich's existing positioning at Bergdorf Goodman, where her work is generally carried, though specific retail confirmation for the Fauna capsule has not been announced.

The marquetry element traces directly to a recent trip to Acre, the westernmost state of Brazil, which Furmanovich has cited as an inspiration for her expanded experimentation with the technique. She designs in an at-home atelier, and it is there that the natural world, gathered through years of travel to Japan, India, Venice, and Egypt, gets translated into wearable form. Previous collections have drawn from Ukiyo-e prints of Japan's Edo period (1600 to 1867), from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition "Divine Pleasures: Painting from India's Rajput Courts," and from Venice's mosaics and Murano glass.

What distinguishes Fauna within that body of work is the specificity of the animal references and the directness of the material choices. Zebra stripes rendered in wood veneer require the same precision as the animal's own markings, no two pieces identical. The beetle wing, already a gem in its own right, carries its iridescence without any dye or treatment, catching light the way a living insect might.

One outstanding question the collection raises is sourcing. Beetle wings have been used in textile and jewelry traditions across South and Southeast Asia for centuries, but responsible collection and trade practices vary considerably. Furmanovich's brand has not issued a public sustainability statement regarding the species or sourcing methods behind the Fauna wings, and that is a disclosure worth pressing for before purchase decisions are made.