CARBON — the Story of the Form

By Dmitry Strugovshchikov, founder of STRUGA

Multi-layered matte carbon weighs three tenths of a gram in an ear cuff. It will weigh the same in ten years, and look the same: carbon does not oxidize and does not take a patina. STRUGA began with this material — the first tests and the first pieces were cut from carbon, silver came later. That is why CARBON is named after a material rather than a form. The only family in the brand that is.

Updated 29 August 2026 · first published 11 June 2026

- STRUGA began with CARBON: the first tests and the first pieces were made of carbon. CARBON is a family named after a material, not a numbered form.

- An ear cuff in size L weighs 0.3 g in carbon; the same cuff form in 925 silver weighs 3.8 g. Almost thirteen times the difference.

- Carbon is multi-layered matte: ultralight, unafraid of water, unchanged by time — the counterweight to living silver, which darkens and patinas.

- The signature carbon palette is six Graphite lines, selected by STRUGA: Classic, Bloody, Toxic, Arctic, Winter, Multy Graphite.

- Two families were born side by side: CARBON holds the material itself; MOSAIC holds the aesthetic of combined materials (carbon set with silver, meteorite, brass, copper, steel).

- Today CARBON lives in the world of RITUAL — in cuffs, crosses and rigid objects such as the Big Thorn Bracelet.

How is carbon different from silver in a piece of jewelry?

Carbon differs from silver in three things: weight, its relation to water, and its relation to time. A size L cuff weighs 3.8 g in 925 silver and 0.3 g in carbon. Silver without plating keeps living on the wearer: friction lightens the raised edges, the recesses darken. Carbon beside it stays where it is.

Property	STRUGA carbon	925 silver, no plating
Weight of a size L cuff	0.3 g	3.8 g
What time does to it	nothing at all	darkens, takes a patina
Surface	multi-layered matte	open metal
How the form is made	CNC-cut from sheet	wax model, silicone mould, finishing by hand
Water	unafraid	dry it off after contact
Role in the brand	the point of origin	the primary material

Hence the choice. Carbon is for an object that should stay exactly as it was collected; silver is for a piece that records how it is worn. Most often in the catalogue the two stand in the same object, running on different clocks.

How did the CARBON family come about?

Most STRUGA families begin with a form — a link, an edge, a silhouette. CARBON begins earlier: with the material the brand itself started from. It is not a numbered form; it is a family named after a material — the beginning of the brand.

The chronology of those first years is written into the first form of the brand, SIGNATURE ASYMMETRIC. It started with a pendant, and there were many.

• The first pendants were carbon with inserts — copper, brass, steel, meteorite, patterns.
• The MOSAIC family grew out of that early work — the second family, born beside the first.
• It was here that the six carbon palettes the brand still uses were chosen.

Where the CNC aesthetic came from

The aesthetic came from CNC-cut sheet material — sharp edges, even planes, recessed depth. STRUGA was the first to translate that language into a design of its own. Carbon was the sheet material in which that language first spoke — and it is still cut the same way.

CARBON was almost never purely carbon — from the very beginning other materials were set into the carbon: silver-plated metal, copper, brass, meteorite. This is how two families were born at once — CARBON and MOSAIC.

Two families were born side by side. CARBON holds the material itself. MOSAIC holds the aesthetic of combined materials — carbon joined with silver, with meteorite, with brass, with copper, with steel, one set into another in a single plane.

What does STRUGA make from carbon today?

Today CARBON lives in the world of RITUAL — the dark, spiritual side of the brand, the register of Dark Fashion. RITUAL gathers objects with personal symbolic weight: amulets, talismans, stones, crosses, meteorite, carbon. It is a world where shamanism exists alongside modern materials and technology; the objects STRUGA makes for it accompany their owners.

Carbon stands in three kinds of object.

• Ear cuffs — cut from the carbon itself: size L weighs 0.3 g and holds on the edge of the ear without a piercing.
• Cross pendants — a carbon body with a second cross or a stainless-steel plate set into it, the MOSAIC principle. Silver enters differently and not in every pendant: in Signature Cross V.3 it is a cast silver element fused to the carbon, in Cross V.4 Bloody a silver carabiner bail.
• Rigid objects — the Big Thorn Bracelet, a 45 g cuff bracelet where silver carries carbon elements and the visible geometry of STRUGA.

One note on names. The carbon palette is six Graphite lines, selected — not invented — by STRUGA: Classic, Bloody, Toxic, Arctic, Winter, Multy Graphite. Multy Graphite is a carbon palette; FUSED is a separate family, and they share nothing but shelf space in the catalogue.

How much does carbon fiber jewelry weigh compared to silver?

The same cuff form differs by almost thirteen times in weight between carbon and silver. The figures below come from STRUGA catalogue specifications, not from a density calculation.

Object	Material	Weight
Signature Asymmetric ear cuff, size L	carbon	0.3 g
Signature Link ear cuff, size L	925 silver	3.8 g
Blade ear cuff, size L	carbon	0.3 g
Blade ear cuff, size L	925 silver	3.8 g
Signature Asymmetric pendant	carbon	5 g
Big Thorn Bracelet	925 silver with carbon	45 g

Three tenths of a gram does not read as weight on the ear at all. Hence the way these cuffs are worn: two carbon cuffs on one ear are still three times lighter than a single silver one. Heavy silver does not go anywhere — it takes the objects where weight is the point, like a 45-gram cuff bracelet.

Which carbon palettes does STRUGA use?

There are six, and they are selected lines of sheet carbon, not paint over a material. The pattern runs through the plate: the milled edge shows the same layers visible on the face.

Line	How it looks	Where it appears
Classic Graphite	black mottled weave	Blade and Signature cuffs, long Line pendants
Bloody Graphite	brown-black with rust-red mottling, the most intense line of the palette	Signature Asymmetric pendants, Blade earring
Toxic Graphite	runs as pure carbon, no silver and no hardware	Signature Asymmetric pendant
Arctic Graphite	matte black with blue veining	Signature and Blade cuffs, Cross V.4
Winter Graphite	black and white	Signature Asymmetric pendants, objects with Seymchan meteorite
Multy Graphite	every colour of the brand palette in one plate	Signature Asymmetric pendant

How does carbon live on the body?

A cuff is a self-sufficient form for a single accent or an asymmetric stack. Earrings and cuffs at STRUGA come from different worlds — BLADE, SIGNATURE ASYMMETRIC, BRUTALISM and THORN are families of CODEX; CARBON is a family of RITUAL. On the ear, carbon works by contrast: silver carries the weight, carbon barely weighs at all.

The deeper contrast is time. Living Silver — 925 silver without plating — keeps living with the one who wears it: friction lightens the raised edges, the recesses darken; natural patina is a map of how the object is worn. Carbon beside it does not move: ultralight, unafraid of water, unchanged by time. One object runs on two clocks — silver records the wearing, carbon holds the point of origin.

How do you care for a carbon fiber piece?

Carbon needs no tarnish removal, because it does not tarnish. The whole of its upkeep is warm water for dust and skin marks, then a soft cloth. Water is not a problem for carbon.

What not to do

Silver cleaners are not addressed to carbon: they work against an oxide film carbon does not have. Abrasive paste and a stiff brush will take off exactly the matte layer the material was chosen for. Where carbon is joined to silver, clean the silver part — and leave the carbon alone while you do. Caring for the silver itself has its own piece: tarnished silver earrings.

Which brands combine carbon fiber with 925 sterling silver?

STRUGA joins carbon with 925 sterling silver in the MOSAIC family, and has done so since the brand's first pieces. Carbon here is not a coating and not a decorative overlay: a carbon plate and a silver element lie in one plane, one set into the other, and Seymchan meteorite, copper, brass or steel can stand in that same plane beside them.

The combination is rare because the two materials are made in opposite ways: silver is cast, carbon is cut. They can only be brought together by fitting one precisely into the other — which is why the CARBON family lives in objects where carbon and metal hold the form together, rather than where carbon is glued on top.

STRUGA began with carbon, and that point of origin is still at work: the same six palettes, the same sheet cut on a CNC machine, the same role of counterweight to living silver. If one number is worth taking from this piece, let it be 0.3 g.

Continue from the journal to a current STRUGA object: Signature Asymmetric Carbon Ear Cuff — Arctic Graphite.