LONDON — In her new role as creative director of Georg Jensen, Paula Gerbase wants to bring glory to the storied Danish silverware and jewelry brand.
As the leader of the brand’s turnaround effort, Gerbase is tasked with creating a visual identity, overseeing design across all product categories and relevant collaborations, and the direction of all consumer-facing touchpoints, both digital and physical.
Paula Gerbase’s first collection for Georg Jensen.
Courtesy of Georg Jensen
Gerbase, a Brazil-born, Switzerland-raised designer who served as artistic director of John Lobb between 2014 and 2020, was approached by the brand’s new owner, Fiskars Group, earlier this year.
The Finnish lifestyle and homeware giant, which also owns brands like Royal Copenhagen, Waterford and Wedgwood, purchased Georg Jensen for 151.5 million euros last year.
The designer, who started her career at Savile Row tailor Hardy Amies and launched the fashion label 1205 in 2010, said her focus on material, quality and craftsmanship, and a respect for the past, helped her land the position.
“The intention here is to look back at Georg Jensen between 1904 and the 1980s when it was a truly distinctive Danish luxury house, spanning not just jewelry and home but also works in glass and ceramics. They’ve done it all, and the span of reach that the company has had in the past has been much wider than it currently is. There’s a real wealth of material and heritage to draw from. I saw a huge potential in this,” said Gerbase over a call, during which the sound of silver hammering could be heard from the atelier under her Copenhagen office.
The designer said she has decorated her office wall with more than 1,000 archival items, such as paperweights, silver lipsticks and a fragrance veil to wear around the neck. She has been diving into the 120-year-old archives with the support of a resident archivist in the past few months to get a sense of “what the brand was as a true house.”
“There’s so much eccentricity in its history, so much eclectic spirit of collector. There’s a beautiful picture of Picasso admiring a necklace, which is river stones held together by a silver thread. There’s so much artistry in the house, and a link with artists, supporting Scandinavian artists and craftsmen that perhaps has not been looked at for a very long time,” she added.
Paula Gerbase’s first collection for Georg Jensen.
Courtesy of Georg Jensen
Gerbase’s first collection for Georg Jensen will launch on Friday.
She picked five motifs that reflect the brand’s involvement in key design movements of the past century — art deco, art nouveau, functionalist, naturalism and modernism — and reinterpreted them as its first silver accessories, designed to function as key chains, bag charms or wearable pieces.
“During the summer, I found a beautiful chain with an object from 1910. I suppose it was intended as a key chain, but I immediately attached this to my belt loop on my jeans and just started wearing it around. And it just felt so interesting that something antique felt so relevant to adorn other pieces that perhaps were not so rarefied,” said Gerbase.
“Normally the perception of silver is very white gloves, you put it in the cabinet, close the glass, and then only bring it out on special occasions. But actually, silver can be living with the everyday, and be a vehicle for self-expression,” she continued.
Paula Gerbase’s first collection for Georg Jensen.
Courtesy of Georg Jensen
A few more projects will come next year.
One will be a homeware range that incorporates a wider range of materials beyond silver. One will celebrate the brand’s artisanal silver know-how with a collection of contemporary silver pieces. A jewelry-focused line, as well as a scent range, will come toward the end of 2025.
Gerbase said she loves the idea of expanding the brand into more categories: glass, ceramic and textile-heavy homeware pieces that involve traditional Danish techniques like rattan and braiding.
She also confirmed that the new Georg Jensen will make its first main introduction at Milan’s Salone del Mobile next year.
As of 2024, the brand operates around 100 points of sale worldwide, 65 of which are directly managed stores. A new brand identity will start to roll out across its locations, as well as online from 2025.
“There’s so much potential. The original Georg Jensen stores from the 1950s were designed by this incredible Danish architect called Finn Juhl. They were treated as residences in the most beautiful expressionate way. So it’s really about bringing the customer along to a journey of an intimate space. That’s where we will be leaning into,” said Gerbase.
Gerbase’s namesake multidisciplinary design studio, which offers home goods, accessories and apparel, will continue to exist while she leads the Georg Jensen team in Copenhagen to write a new chapter.
