Sarah Emilie Müllertz on Inspiration Behind The Stilos Collection
In this conversation, founder and creative director Sarah Emilie Müllertz shares the thinking behind the Stilos Collection - from the enduring proportions of ancient Grecian architecture to the quiet discipline of repetition, rhythm and restraint.
Rooted in Sarah’s background as an architect, Stilos explores what happens when the logic of architecture is brought to the scale of the body. The collection takes its starting point in the classical column - not as ornament, but as a system of proportion and structure.
What has stood for thousands of years becomes something intimate: architecture, translated into jewellery.
Architecture as a Starting Point
Q: Stilos has a very clear architectural language. Where did the collection begin?
“Architecture has always been a natural starting point for me. Before jewellery, I trained and worked as an architect, and I think that way of looking at the world has never really left me.
With Stilos, I kept returning to the classical Grecian columns - particularly the Doric and Ionic orders. What interested me was not so much their historical symbolism, but the clarity of their construction. There is a very precise relationship between proportion, repetition and rhythm.
Nothing feels arbitrary. Every line has a purpose, and every element relates to the whole. There is something very beautiful about that restraint.”
The Beauty of Proportion
Q: What is it about the ancient Grecian orders that continues to feel relevant to you?
“There is a reason we still respond to these structures thousands of years later. They are incredibly disciplined, but they don’t feel rigid. There is harmony in the proportions.
I’m very drawn to that idea - that beauty can come from a set of limitations. You don’t necessarily need to add more. Sometimes it is about reducing until you arrive at the essential form.
The columns have this wonderful verticality and repetition. When you look closely, there is a rhythm created by the fluting, by the intervals, by the relationship between solid and void. These are very architectural ideas, but they translate naturally into jewellery.”
From Architecture to the Body
Q: How do you take something as monumental as a column and turn it into something that can be worn?
“That change of scale is something I find very interesting. Architecture surrounds the body, whereas jewellery sits directly on it. But many of the principles are the same.
I didn’t want the pieces to look like miniature columns. It was more about understanding what gives the column its character and then distilling that.
The repetition becomes a rhythm in the piece. The vertical lines become a sense of length and direction. The proportions are reduced and refined until the reference is almost abstract.
And then the body adds another dimension. A piece of architecture is fixed, but jewellery moves. It changes with the person wearing it and with the light. So something that begins as a very ordered, structural idea becomes much more alive.”
A Collaboration in Form
The Stilos Collection was developed in collaboration with Danish fashion house MKDT Studio, bringing together two design disciplines with a shared sensitivity to silhouette, material and proportion.
Q: How did the collaboration influence the development of Stilos?
“There was a very natural meeting point between our worlds. Fashion and jewellery both have this close relationship with the body, but they approach it at different scales.
The dialogue was very much about proportion and silhouette - how a line continues, how an object relates to the body, how something can have presence without becoming excessive.
That became important for Stilos. The pieces are quite graphic and architectural, but there is also a lightness to them. They needed to feel strong in their form while remaining effortless to wear.”
For me, the collection is about translating something deeply familiar into a new scale. Taking the architecture we live with every day and reinterpreting it into something more intimate - something you can carry with you."
Material and Contrast
Q: The collection brings together gold, silver and Mpingo blackwood. What role does material play in the designs?
“Material is never something I think of separately from form. It changes the way you experience an object.
Gold and silver bring precision and light. They make the lines very clear and allow the structure of the pieces to come forward. Mpingo has a completely different quality. It is deep and almost black, with a warmth and softness that creates a beautiful contrast to the metal.
I love that balance. There is something very architectural about it — the meeting of different surfaces, different weights, different ways of reflecting light.
And Mpingo is particularly meaningful to us because we work with it as an upcycled material. It allows us to take something that already exists and give it a new life and value.”
To Create Enduring Beauty
At the heart of Stilos is an idea that reaches beyond any single architectural reference: that good proportions endure.
The collection does not reproduce a particular temple or column. Instead, it draws from a design language that has remained legible for millennia — one built on balance, repetition and restraint.
Q: Is that sense of longevity something you consciously think about when designing?
“Always. I don’t want to create something that only belongs to one moment.
For me, enduring design is not about making something neutral or anonymous. It is about finding a form that has enough clarity and integrity to continue feeling relevant over time.
That is perhaps what I admire most about classical architecture. Nearly three thousand years later, we can still look at these proportions and feel something. They still make sense to us.
With Stilos, I wanted to carry a little of that thinking into jewellery - to create pieces that feel very present today, but are not defined by today.
In the end, it comes back to restraint. Knowing what is necessary, knowing what can be removed, and allowing the form itself to speak.”
"With Stilos, the enduring principles of architecture are brought to the scale of the body. Proportion, repetition and restraint shape each piece, while the meeting of metal and Mpingo brings contrast and depth. Rooted in a design language that has endured for millennia, the collection reflects my belief that clarity of form can transcend its time, creating jewellery designed to remain relevant for years to come."
With Love,
Sarah Emilie Müllertz