Jay Boggo brings marble cocoa to the body at La Samaritaine

A marble bench, a leather bag, a pair of tabi‑mules and an outfit created for the occasion. The four pieces Jay Boggo presents at La Samaritaine in Paris come from different departments of a store and from a single research.

The Brazilian artist and designer joins Brésil to La Samaritaine in the Bold Summer edition, a project of the Parisian store devoted to Brazilian creativity. The season began on July 7 and runs until August 26, bringing together names from fashion, design, art, architecture, beauty and gastronomy.

The selection he brings to Paris is intentionally brief: the Cacau bench in Pegasus marble, the Cacau bag, the tabi‑mule and a complete look made exclusively for the project. Placed side by side, the four describe the method more precisely than an entire collection could.

A fruit that changes scale

In Jay’s work, cacao is neither a print nor a decorative reference. It is a starting point. The fruit appears as a symbol of memory, material and Brazilian cultural identity, and it shifts in size and function as it moves through the studio: from furniture to accessory, from sculpture to the body.

The Banco Cacau in Pegasus marble is the most recognizable piece of this trajectory. It emerges from the redefinition of cacao as a symbol of the country's natural and cultural wealth and, in its stone version, acquires a sculptural reading, focused on the dialogue between nature, permanence and object.

From furniture to the body

The Cacau Bag is the direct development of the bench. It brings to the body an investigation that already existed in furniture and transforms form, memory and Brazilian‑ness into a functional object. The two pieces were presented together for the first time at the vernissage of the exhibition “Ritos” at Roca São Paulo Gallery, and it is in this proximity that the logic becomes evident: between one and the other the scale and point of support change, not the subject.

What the tabi-mule acknowledges

The tabi-mule originates from a form historically linked to Japanese culture. Jay does not claim this origin. He brings the form closer to his own repertoire, marked by an interest in kimonos, painting, gesture and materiality, and treats it as a recognized heritage rather than a loose reference. The distinction is subtle in discourse and decisive in practice.

A look made for Paris

The fourth item is a complete look, created especially for the participation in La Samaritaine and also linked to the cacao narrative. It is where the research fully reaches the body, and where the convergence of fashion, sculpture and design moves from a declared intention to a wearable piece.

“Being at La Samaritaine with fashion and design pieces is a way to present different dimensions of my work in a single space. Cocoa appears as a symbolic material, but also as memory, form and language. I am interested in this place where the object can inhabit the body, the home and the imagination at the same time,” says Jay Boggo.

Subvert limits

The brand's new phase stems from a manifesto with this name, which functions less as a slogan than as a description of an ongoing method.

“I have never seen fashion, art and design as separate territories. To me, a garment can be an object, a bag can carry memory, a design piece can have a body. Jay Boggo now embraces this more directly: a brand that mixes languages, materials and references to create without limiting itself to a single category,” the creator adds.

At La Samaritaine, the European audience encounters this research condensed into four objects, among material, memory and symbolic construction emerging from contemporary Brazilian production.

Service

Jay Boggo in Brazil at La Samaritaine, Bold Summer Edition.

Period: July 7 to August 26, 2026.

Location: La Samaritaine, Paris.

Pieces presented: Cacau Bank in Pegasus marble, Cacau Bag, tabi-mule, and a complete look created exclusively for the project.