Sumatra single earrings

Sumatra is Java's neighbouring island, and it was born in the same workshop and from the same little girl.

One afternoon, while I was working, Fénix found a leftover piece of brass wire on the bench. She wound it round her wrist, squeezed it with her fingers until it stayed put and showed it to me the way you show someone a treasure: "Look, it doesn't fall off any more."

It had no clasp and no ornament. It was just a line that went round and stayed there, hugging. It seemed to me that nothing needed adding.

That is Sumatra: a solid wire that goes round without quite closing. In the earrings, that curve becomes small and stays on the ear.

Sumatra isn't cut from a sheet: it begins as a solid brass wire. For the earrings, a short length is cut and curved by hand into a clean, round open hoop.

Then it is sanded and polished (and, for the matt finish, matted), and it receives the white bronze plating, the 24-carat gold plating and a final hypoallergenic coating.

They're made on Calle Alameda, in Madrid's Barrio de las Letras, in a workshop you can visit. If you come by, you will probably see the next pair being curved.

They're small and light, the kind you put on in the morning and forget you're wearing.

The open curve looks clean from the front and in profile, and goes with the rest of the series: the bracelets and the chokers.

If you'd like more drop, there are the Sumatra long earrings.

The hypoallergenic coating protects the piece from contact with skin and perfume. Store them dry and on their own, and avoid putting on scent while you're wearing them. With normal wear and this care, the gold plating lasts for years.