Latest information

18/01/2024

Design furniture with Galician roots

Comparte este artigo

Based in Santiago, Bela Furtiva is a brand of furniture and accessories rooted in Galician culture that manufactures its products by hand in local workshops and with natural materials.

Craftsmanship, innovation and sustainability are the main pillars of Bela Furtiva, a brand of furniture and accessories in which atlantic inspiration, Galician culture and the personal experiences of its founder, Xema Varela, come together.

The project was born in the middle of the pandemic, but the idea had been in his head for a long time. As the head of the interior design company Nanube since 2008, he had solid experience in the sector. "We were used to working on very personalised projects and designing all the furniture that was included, so I wanted to capitalise on and take advantage of all that knowledge," says Xema Varela. "The confinement was an unexpected moment of calm in which the opportunity arose to dedicate time to give shape to all the ideas I had in mind, coinciding also with a moment in my life in which I was questioning many things on an identity level", she continues. In this process, he also connected with the figure of his grandmother, who inspired the name of the project. "Bela Furtiva was born as a tribute to all those women who, before us and also today, dared and dare to rebel against the social convictions that relegate them to the background".

The ultimate aim of Bella Furtiva is to move away from the prototypical idea of a piece of furniture and create "pieces that can connect emotionally with people, that go beyond functionality merely understood as utility. To deconstruct furniture and go further into the territory of art", he explains.

Urban-rural connection

At present, Bela Furtiva has 5 collections underway, each with its own story. "The most successful are our benches: Xara, a piece with an elegant and simple appearance, although there is nothing simple, but a lot of work behind it; and Naila, which conveys a great feeling of slenderness and consistency," he explains.

The brand's products and collections go hand in hand with Galician culture, with a great deal of research, interpretation and updating of different concepts and a strong emotional component.

"As an example, for our latest collection Atar, which is in process and of which we are beginning to show the first prototypes and pieces, we travelled around the Galician countryside for almost a year looking at different "material realisations", which is what we call the architectural solutions that are made spontaneously in the countryside to solve needs", he explains. "We're talking about when you come across a table made with wooden boards and concrete blocks left over from building a house, or a railing made with fishing nets that are already there around some poles...". Thus, they were inspired by this reality to create pieces with the same mentality, but attractive to a design-focused public, with a desire to reconcile the urban world with the rural world and betting more and more on single-edition furniture.

Natural materials and circular economy

For the creation of the different pieces, Bela Furtiva works mainly with natural materials and metals, such as steel, as well as fabrics such as linen or wild silks. In addition, the concept of circular economy is increasingly present in their collections. In fact, in their latest collection, for which they had an audit to guide them through the process, they use by-products, workshop scraps, leftover fabrics, pieces of wood from the workshops they work with, etc. to reintroduce them into the production chain. "In addition, we work with local workshops, the water consumption we make is minimal.... We are having more and more control over this," he remarks.

Bela Furtiva's interior design studio is located in Santiago, which is where they carry out most of their transactions, and which they complement with the creation of different pop-ups (concept of itinerant and temporary shops) in Galicia, their website and social networks. The latter "play an important role for us because they are the tool that users use to get information beforehand. They are not yet decision-makers when it comes to purchasing, but they are a way of making ourselves better known and being more connected".

After the experience of the pop-ups held in Carballo and Pontevedra, in 2024 they plan to hold one in Santiago. For the future, their main challenge is to achieve a more stable commercialisation and to expand and market to Portugal, without neglecting the social aspect. "We are not only interested in being a company that generates profits, we are very interested in making an impact on society, offering a message with which we can contribute and doing relevant work that has a positive effect", concludes Xema Varela.

You may also be interested