Júlia Vilas
Design and innovation
ELISAVA Barcelona
Specialisms: Jewelry / Design for Social Good / Art Direction
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Júlia Vilas
First Name: Júlia
Last Name: Vilas
Specialisms: Jewelry / Design for Social Good / Art Direction
Sectors:
My Location: Barcelona, Spain
University / College: ELISAVA Barcelona
Course / Program Title: Design and innovation
About
I studied Product Design with a strong interest in social issues, paying close attention to my surroundings and exploring the reality of cities such as Barcelona as case studies. My projects have developed across different typologies and fields, while maintaining a common thread: my personal values and perspective as a designer. Through these projects, I have gradually discovered and defined my own aesthetic, as well as my interests within the field of design.
As a designer, I would like to take an active and influential role, using design as a tool to give visibility and a voice to people who have not had the privilege or opportunity to make themselves heard.
Her Hair is a project that uses hair as a tool to reflect on identity, memory, and the relationship with one's own body. In our society, hair embodies a contradiction: it can provoke disgust while simultaneously inspiring fascination when it remains attached to the body. This contradiction is deeply rooted in social constructs, stigma, gender norms, privilege, and fetishization. Hair acts as a mirror between the public and the private; it is intimate yet exposed, private yet public, personal yet subject to social value and judgment. Through this tension, the project materializes into a jewelry collection developed in collaboration with Tous exploring the symbolism and materiality of hair. The jewelry pieces act as the material outcome of a ritual process composed of three acts: combing, cutting, and transforming. These gestures reveal the ability to intervene in oneself, to recognize a moment as significant, and to preserve it. The ritual highlights an often invisible privilege: having control over one's own bodily narrative and transforming it into matter.