I bring to the world of SUSTAINABLE LUXURY the fusion of a strategic vision from more than two decades developing B to B markets, my motivation to bring freedom and wellnes to small scale producers, the artistry of my early training as a musician and a strong advocate voice.
In COLOMBIA, a country whose territory continues to be ravaged by illicit gold mining, it is our duty to propel change towards counscious jewelry.
I founded MODA ELAN to SHARE the unique experience of working with artisanal ancestral miners and master goldsmiths at the ORIGIN.
TO CONNECT people like you, passionate for exceptional design and craftsmanship in ethical jewelry, to those who chose the creative gesture and fine jewelry craft as a way of life.
After embracing silversmithing, a long postponed passion, and
in the SEARCH FOR VALUES upstream, I found ethical jewelry
and the fascinating cosmovision of ANCESTRAL AFRO JEWELRY.
Since 2019 I took the challenge to develop high value markets TO BRING POSITIVE IMPACT to the goldsmith communities of BIOGEOGRAPHICAL CHOCO.
A contribution to keep alive this CULTURAL HERITAGE and a call to REGENERATE one the ninth most BIODIVERSE TERRITORIES in our planet, both currently threatened by illegal mechanized gold mining.
Let´s get in touch!
MEET OUR TEAM
MEET JAIRO
Golsdmith director & mentor
A jeweler for 40 years, Jairo Barbosa has been in contact with Colombian tradicional master goldsmiths since the 1980s.
Starting in 1991 and during 20 intermittent years he worked with Artesanías de Colombia, the national trust for ancestral crafts, doing research, field work and desing with traditional jewelers around the country.
It is during this time that he extensively traveled biogeographical Chocó working side by side with the local goldsmiths and learning about the myths and legends of gold in this marginal territory.
In 2012 he leads the design and operation of a vocational training fund by Save the Children, for the trasfering of ancestral jewelry knowledge to youngs in Barbacoas, the mythical goldsmith town in Nariño, south of biogeographical Choco.
More recently he joined Juana Mendez for the field research of her book "Somos Hijos del Oro", published in March 2021.
MEET JULIAN
Finance & IT
Julian David is an Industrial Engineer and Product Designer from Universidad Nacional in Bogotá, Colombia.
A Front end Developer, he was finalist to the Tech-I from Gist in 2019 and participated in the first Human Centered Value Creation challenge at the UNAM in Mexico representing his Alma mater.
His experience in human centered design and his logical mind provide the administrative support to develop each new project.
MEET ALBERTO
Photographer
With the lens of his cameras on his shoulder for more than 30 years, Alberto Sierra Restrepo has learned to read the world in terms of light and focus.
In his quest to find new spaces to portray, he has traveled through Colombia, dedicated to documentary photography.
For several years, he worked making the photographic record of the collections of the Gold Museum. This is how he began to venture into the world of photographing the immobile.
His work for ModaElan is a sample of how magnetic his photographs of the jewels are: the suspended pieces convey everything that the jeweler set out to carve in them. Alberto's lens is dressed in each of the pieces he portrays, working them with patience and meticulousness. Her photographs go far beyond the simple capture of an inanimate object: in each one of them, the jewels acquire a Vital Elan.
MEET ANA
Founder & creative director
"In our industrialized and mass-production world the artisan craft is an expression of freedom."
Ana
MEET KATIA
History teller
Four countries on three continents as residence, and three mother tongues (Rusian, French and Spanish), has been part of the involuntary journey of Katerina Sierra.
Literature and her laureated thesis about Japanese literature has been her chosen path.
Thinking the written word as a chrysalis that contains images, Katerina seeks to rescue the fundamentals of each artisan and their creations to represent them through writing. Using the work of the jewelers, videos and interviews as sources of inspiration Katia weaves, chisels and melts words to write histories.
A Literature Graduate from Universidad Javeriana, in Bogotá, Colombia, Katerina is currently following MA studies in Literature at Salamanca, Spain and Berlin, Germany.
MEET JUANA
Our inspiration
The Chains of Chocó series has been inspired by the work of Juana Méndez. Economist, acclaimed goldsmith and jewelry historian, Juana did an extensive field research about ancestral Afro jewelry in Colombia between 2014 and 2020.
Her work published in 2019 and 2020 includes the book Somos Hijos del Oro (Universidad de los Andes 2020), a rich testimony with the voices of gold panners and traditional jewelers and their own perspective about gold and goldsmith in Chocó; the Manual de Joyería del Chocó (Acua, Universidad de los Andes 2019), and the Manual de joyería del Pacífico (in press), two illustrated catalogs that document the Biogeographical Choco´s Afro traditional jewelry.
We express our gratitude to Juana for her generosity in sharing her friends and her knowledge with us.
