Josefina Baillères at the U.S. Fashion Trust Awards

We were honored to be recognized for our work at the U.S. Fashion Trust Awards in Los Angeles this year. The evening felt both celebratory and grounding, shaped by a community that values craft, individuality, and the continued growth of independent practices.

When we received the news from the U.S. Fashion Trust, the rhythm of the studio shifted. There was excitement, but also immediacy. From the beginning, we knew we did not want to present the work as isolated pieces of jewelry, but rather as a world surrounding them: one shaped by gestures, references, symbols, and small obsessions that give each piece its language.

The presentation was conceived not simply as a display of finished jewelry, but as an environment through which the broader world of the work could be experienced. References, materials, narratives, and gestures that shape each piece from its inception were translated into the installation itself. Every display began as a hand-drawn study before being physically realized by Josefina. Handcrafted entirely in New York, each element was cast, painted, assembled, and installed within the studio. In the final stages of preparation, Josefina personally drilled, nailed, and constructed the displays by hand, bringing a direct physical intimacy to the installation and reinforcing the studio’s commitment to craftsmanship at every scale.The days leading up to the presentation became intensely collaborative, with everyone in the studio moving constantly between making, adjusting, documenting, casting, wiring, and wrapping. Storytelling has always been central to the work, but for Fashion Trust, we wanted that storytelling to take physical form.

Several sculptural forms were created specifically for the presentation, not as conventional displays, but as extensions of the works themselves. The Peletita Brooch rested within a bronze candy wrapper, suspended as though it had just been opened. The Corazón de Melón Ring was pierced by an arrow passing through the center of the finger opening, holding within it the tension of tenderness and vulnerability. For the Bitten Ring, Josefina sculpted a small bronze tree holding the bitten ring, finished with a custom patina that introduced depth and atmosphere while allowing the jade to remain central. Elsewhere, planets from Universo appeared suspended in midair, and the Resbaladilla de Arcoíris Ring was paired with an enlarged sculptural form inspired by stretched rainbow taffy, echoing the movement of the piece across the hand. Throughout the installation, the intention was to create a landscape that could be experienced intuitively: immersive and imaginary. Each sculpture allowed the different works to carry their own emotional and symbolic logic.

We value the process as much as the finished work, which is why archiving is so important to us. Over the past ten months, our archivist, Shwe, has led the careful digitization and reconstruction of the studio’s physical archive alongside its broader visual and material references. Sketches, photographs, research materials, source documents, and archival fragments were individually scanned and preserved before new photographic studies were created around them. These materials were then organized collection by collection, gradually forming a living archive that traces the evolution of the studio’s visual language alongside the layers of memory, narrative, and research embedded within each work.

The archive explores the origins of past designs, the stories behind how they came into being, and the broader histories of design from which the studio continues to draw inspiration. Existing archival materials are revisited and reinterpreted through the studio’s own perspective, allowing past and present to remain in continuous conversation.

Emerging from this process was the booklet, designed by Josefina as an extension of the presentation itself. Bringing together selected works, archival imagery, notes, and references, it offered a more intimate view into the processes of making, collecting, remembering, and reimagining that continue to shape the studio’s practice.

Beyond the installation itself, storytelling extended into the gestures surrounding the presentation. As a quiet preview of the studio space that will soon open by appointment only in the Upper East Side, a series of sculptural soap popsicle sticks were created and shared as invitations. Conceived somewhere between an object, a souvenir, and a fragment of memory, they reflected the studio’s ongoing interest of transforming everyday stories into something unexpected. This extension of playfulness in our story telling reflects a core value of creating narrative experiences through every aspect of the work we do. 

A defining moment for the studio was seeing works from different periods gathered together in one space. Many pieces had been generously loaned back by clients, allowing them to exist in dialogue with one another once again. In proximity, recurring forms, gestures, and tensions became visible across collections, revealing the gradual evolution of the studio’s language with a clarity that is rarely possible when each work exists independently.

At the core of the studio’s practice is an ongoing dialogue between Josie, instinctive and playful, and Josefina, who refines these gestures through craftsmanship and close collaboration with artisans. Several works reflect this relationship directly. The Peletita Brooch transforms a fleeting gesture into something lasting. The Corazón de Melón Ring holds love as both beauty and vulnerability, something worn and made personal. The Bitten Ring embraces contradiction, where the mark itself becomes meaning. More intimate narratives appear in the Mi Guadalupe Pendant, where faith and family are held close, and in the Bubble Letter Pendant, where a mother’s handwriting is translated into form and memory.

For a studio that has grown slowly and with intention, this recognition feels especially meaningful because it acknowledges not only the finished works, but also the process behind them: the research, experimentation, care, and devotion that shape the practice over time. The support from the Fashion Trust allows the work to continue developing with greater clarity and intention. It brings the studio closer to its vision and enables ideas that may once have remained within the archive to fully take shape.

We are deeply grateful to our clients for their trust and generosity in loaning their pieces back to the studio so this continuity could be shared. We are proud to be part of a community that continues to support independent practices and the worlds they create.

That which comes from love has no fear of time.