Childish experimentation is difficult to achieve as an adult. A muscle we need to exercise, intuition is often at odds with the seemingly endless flow of modern life. Indifferent, organic and quietly enjoyable, Emma In Paraty for Treivas Group enters this world of awe, exploring the nature of embroidery that founder Olga Treiva remembers from her childhood. Crafted from jatobá wood—also known as Brazilian cherry—the cabinet has a lustrous sheen, with a bright red thread that adds welcome contrast, allowing the grain to shine through.
Made in São Paulo, each piece is one-of-a-kind. Expertly balanced but perfectly imperfect, Emma in Paraty hearkens back to vintage speaker cabinets, with screens that allow sound to escape in certain sections. Here, that scale is blown up in a satisfying way, with weaving playing a large role in the organic nature of the craft.
Embroidery points are rendered individually, ensuring no two pieces are alike. The joy is in the exploratory nature of placement – an organic, tastefully decorative expression of boundaries and subject matter. Stitches get lost, holes don’t exactly line up, and it reminds us of our humanity—not only do we start from the same place, but we end up in the same place.
Inherently human and creatively complex, the tactile interplay between contours and wood over time will be a joy to behold. This piece explores details from the designer’s childhood recalling threads tangled between pieces of construction in a cabinet drawer.
He shares, “We jokingly called these items ‘sol na peneira’. The name is a reinterpretation of a Brazilian saying, “tapar o sol com a peneira”, or “to cover the sun with a sieve”. It is used when a person makes an unsuccessful attempt to hide something they did wrong. Embracing the irregularity of hand embroidery is a way of admitting one’s mistakes and making imperfection one’s strongest feature. This approach is honest, naive and deeply feminine—just like the pieces, they impress with their honesty.”
A shelf nestled in the bottom echoes the cheeky style of the cabinet body, extending the embroidery down. A perfect place to display vases or store items for later, the bright red thread creates a warm spot to rest items, a natural hem to the space.
To learn more about Emma in Paraty by Olga Treiva, visit treivas. team.
Photo by Rui Teixeira.
