Hobbit style magic
Catarina Araújo
Our legacy
Fátima Santos
Secretary General of AORP – Associação de Ourivesaria e Relojoaria de Portugal
To speak of legacy at a time when humanity is on a quest for solutions to secure its future may seem against the tide, were it not that this might just be the genesis of the solution. From childhood on, we have been taught to learn from our mistakes, to see in the past a lesson for the future. But why don’t we look at our past to (re)think our future?!
As an association representing the jewellery sector, one of the oldest and most traditional Portuguese arts, we have been working towards the realisation that more than always trying to rewrite the future what we needed was to re-read the past. And that’s how we came to our "Legacy”. A campaign, which, more than promotion, serves the purpose of enhancing and raising awareness about jewels as eternal and timeless assets. We have reclaimed the techniques and designs that are part of our history and our collective imagination. But which have not been lost in time. They are now renewed by contemporary design and by a conscious consumer interested in the stories and memories behind each piece. Valuing the past, tradition and heritage as factors that bestow identity and set things apart.
In this eulogy to eternity, the campaign also sends out a message of awareness-raising for the principles of sustainability, fair trade and ‘slow fashion’, intrinsic to Portuguese jewellery. The aim is to show how a piece of jewellery – as a good with a long product cycle, which can last for eternity – goes against the unsustainable trend of the consumer market. We want the jewellery industry to lead a movement that the fashion industry must necessarily follow.
And it is with this sense of commitment and hope that we enter the new decade. Portuguese jewellery has the compass for its future in its past. We are plotting new routes, with the world as our map, and along the way finding new audiences, that renew the sector, in a perfect cycle. Like all good stories that begin with "Once upon a time…” and end with a "happily ever after”.
As an association representing the jewellery sector, one of the oldest and most traditional Portuguese arts, we have been working towards the realisation that more than always trying to rewrite the future what we needed was to re-read the past. And that’s how we came to our "Legacy”. A campaign, which, more than promotion, serves the purpose of enhancing and raising awareness about jewels as eternal and timeless assets. We have reclaimed the techniques and designs that are part of our history and our collective imagination. But which have not been lost in time. They are now renewed by contemporary design and by a conscious consumer interested in the stories and memories behind each piece. Valuing the past, tradition and heritage as factors that bestow identity and set things apart.
In this eulogy to eternity, the campaign also sends out a message of awareness-raising for the principles of sustainability, fair trade and ‘slow fashion’, intrinsic to Portuguese jewellery. The aim is to show how a piece of jewellery – as a good with a long product cycle, which can last for eternity – goes against the unsustainable trend of the consumer market. We want the jewellery industry to lead a movement that the fashion industry must necessarily follow.
And it is with this sense of commitment and hope that we enter the new decade. Portuguese jewellery has the compass for its future in its past. We are plotting new routes, with the world as our map, and along the way finding new audiences, that renew the sector, in a perfect cycle. Like all good stories that begin with "Once upon a time…” and end with a "happily ever after”.
