DUBAI: The Lebanese-Brazilian designer discusses her new gold bracelet, “Straw Bracelet.” For the latest updates, follow us on Instagram @arabnews.lifestyle One of the things I love to do is take the ordinary and make it extraordinary — to revisit everyday objects. Another theme that is super-clear for me is that I want my pieces to bring a smile to people’s faces. But more than that, I want them to be reminded of their childhoods.  Why specifically the utensil component? It’s because I’m a huge foodie and I think it’s a cultural part of connecting with people. For me, using these hidden heroes — these tools that we use to connect, to slurp, to eat — was, in a way, valorizing them.  It also had an element of customization. What I love to do is introduce a collection, but allow my clients to continue the storytelling by making it unique to them, and that’s where the title “Youtensils” comes in. We’ve all had meals that remind us of people and, to me, if people can impose this into this collection by customizing it themselves, it’s only going to strengthen the storytelling. It was definitely a canvas that I think people hadn’t played with before.  The first piece I worked on was the fork, but the straw was my ‘A-ha’ moment. If I needed to explain the collection through one piece, it would be the straw, because it’s so playful, it’s something we use from a young age. It reminds me of these drinks that we probably shouldn’t be drinking, like smoothies and slushies. There is also the perspective of this being a piece that’s part of our society that we’re no longer going to come across in the future, because there’s a movement — which I support — to ban plastic.  For me, the detail that’s so important — that we went over so many times — was that place where the straw bends. It’s such a simple image that people think probably it was so easy to create, but it’s so complex.  It actually took bending a straw to show the different bends and creases and how the straw is actually formed when you bend it. Everything is handmade and there’s just a small detail of fine jewelry, which is at the tip of the straws, where we’ve decided to put these circles in, where people can customize it with whatever stone speaks to them.