'Extinct' is the name of Gonzalo Cutrina’s latest collection, a Barcelona based illustrator that together with accessories designer Aurora Vilaboa, manages to take plastic jewellery into a higher level every season. Colourful, playful and bold, from the idea of reproducing extinct animals from pre-history, Gonzalo’s newest proposal represents a more than appealing rescue of pterodactyls and multicoloured fossils.

DD: Gonzalo Cutrina’s style is…
Gonzalo Cutrina: We try to make it fresh, fun and visually powerful.

DD: Which is the philosophy of the brand?
Gonzalo Cutrina: To make beautiful things that people may like and to have fun, Aurora and I, while making them.

DD: As far as I know, you are an illustrator, actually. How do you end up then having your own accessories line?
Gonzalo Cutrina: Yes, indeed. My work is still the same though obviously there are some different guidelines from magazine illustration I have to follow when designing accesories, because we send our work to be printed or to be done in a workshop; illustration is something applicable to many other specialities. And then, there is Aurora also, who helps with ideas and with the most technical details.

DD: What is it that never fails to inspire you?
Gonzalo Cutrina: When I have an idea I like for a collection but I can’t use it in that moment because it does not go with what I am doing then I just keep it in mind for later, till the moment it can be useful.  


DD: When looking at your pieces one can think that they play with the original idea of accessory because they become something further than a simple accessory for an outfit, they become the outfit themselves most of the time, do you think about this when you work in them?
Gonzalo Cutrina: I think this has more to do with our personal taste rather than with a premeditated concept.

DD: Tell us about your latest S/S 10 collection.
Gonzalo Cutrina: It is about extinct animals. The idea came to my mind because I like collecting elephant-shaped brooches, little toys and stuff like that. So I though about doing a mammoth and then the rest came naturally. In the end we ruled out some pieces we were not convinced about and the collection ended up being a bit reduced. We also wanted to do some scarves this season but due to some problems with a few suppliers we decide to postpone the idea. For next season we would like to do a bigger collection, with a higher number of pieces and including also some new accessories. In Extinct we have mainly worked with plastic for the jewellery line but we are thinking about introducing new moulds and new materials for our next collections, we are still working on this.