The Power of Color and the Freedom of Play: An Interview with Papiroga

What is Papiroga?

Papiroga  is an accessory brand that aims to change women’s moods. We create amulet-like pieces that stay with you in important moments, transforming how you feel and how you look. We do this through color — our main expressive tool — and through play, our language. We play with everything, we play with life. Personally, play runs through every part of my life, and naturally through Papiroga as well.

We founded the brand in 2011 as a counterpoint to mass-market values — sales, discounts, and clothes that never felt right to us. Coming from the world of retail ourselves, we wanted something different. In a way, it was counterculture.

We wanted to create a living, breathing project that could make women feel differently. That’s why our pieces are always born from inspiration and concept. Each one is like a wearable mini-sculpture, and each has a story that gives it meaning.

Everything is handcrafted in our workshop, just beneath Papiroga House. We focus on every detail, so that when you put on a pair of earrings, they make you feel incredible.

The values we set from the start are still alive today. We don’t do sales, we don’t play with discounts. Quite the opposite: when a collection nears its end, it becomes even more valuable to us, never cheaper.

The world grows faster and faster, but we believe in timelessness. We want to create jewelry that matters today, five years from now, and that one day you’ll pass on to your daughter. Pieces that carry meaning even before they’re released, and that finish their story with the person who wears them.

Our clients are women who care about what they buy, who look for values in a brand that either resonate with them or even help define them.

What’s in Papiroga’s collections today?

Last winter’s collection was inspired by Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love. A beautiful film about a love story that remains unfulfilled — left in conversations, in a dilemma between a lived love and an intended one. All those pieces carry that story, those gestures, those graphic motifs etched into them.

The story unfolds between Hong Kong and Cambodia, and we tried to reflect that both in each design and in the palette of the whole collection.

The previous spring-summer season drew from Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights — a triptych that, when closed, shows the world before life. We imagined pieces that could belong to that sphere, that world: still transparent, unreal, lifeless. Then we moved through the panels of the triptych, playing with forms, meanings, and even the distortions of the third panel with its darker tones.

We always work with color and form. We believe color has incredible power — it can bring out the best in us or, sometimes, work against us. That’s why we explore mid-tones that suit everyone, and forms that sit well on anyone. Our jewelry always shifts with the person wearing it: on one it looks one way, on another, completely different. It absorbs your personality.

This year’s collection is called Funghi. Inspired by mushrooms — not just their caps, but also the mycelium, that vast organism beneath our feet, the fifth kingdom without which life could not exist, though we rarely notice it. In this collection, we explore fungi as ancient sources of life, older than us and everything else.

We worked with engraving and new materials that play with volume in homage to lichens. These pieces suit everyone and truly change your mood. When you put them on, something shifts.

What makes Papiroga House special?

Papiroga House is a space of experiences, where you can try on earrings, feel them, test their size and weight, explore all the collections, and find the one that’s yours. But it’s more than that: you can even dive into our ball pit.

You can take any piece you like — they’re held with magnets, so it’s easy. That way you can really see which one suits you best. It’s a space full of color, shapes, and possibilities, where you’ll discover the piece that makes you feel amazing.

Who is the “Papiroga woman”?

She’s restless, curious, eager to discover new things — and, above all, she carries stories with her.

Our pieces are like that too — more than just material. The material is the least important; what matters is what lies behind it.

This woman values what she buys and is careful about where she puts her money. She sees Papiroga not as an expense, but as an investment. She keeps her pieces and wears them like amulets.

The Papiroga woman feels confident, knows what she likes, and doesn’t care what others think.

Your hidden gem to share?

In Madrid, I always recommend the Fundación Juan March. A cultural and exhibition center with wonderful shows, a fantastic café, a garden, and an even more impressive library.

Outside Spain, I would say Naoshima in Japan. It’s an island dedicated to art, where every performance and installation is about silence, color, and light. Extraordinary artists work there, and to me, it’s a magical place.