21 May Made in Tel Aviv
Made in Tel Aviv
Last week, Austrian daily newspaper Kurier wrote an article highlighting Israeli design in Vienna. Of course, Sheyn and the shop of Jewish Museum Vienna, Gottfried & Söhne, were featured.
Sheyn – a name that swings. It is reminiscent of the Yiddish song “Bei mir bist du schön”, made known among others by the Andrews Sisters. For the designer Nicolas Gold, it is the melody of his childhood: “My grandmother spoke Yiddish, for me it was like a secret language.” That a word from the grandmotherly “secret language” now – in orthographically modified form – became the namesake of his jewelry label is an appeal to the family roots. On the other hand, Yiddish combines German and Hebrew – perfect for a label that is run by a Jewish Argentinian immigrated to Vienna via Tel Aviv together with an Austrian.
Before Nicolas Gold founded “Sheyn” with his partner Markus Schaffer, he studied architecture in Tel Aviv and later at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna with Zaha Hadid. The architect was a formative mentor to him. “Movement and the flow of things” belonged to Hadid’s credo and are also omnipresent in Gold’s designs. Each piece of jewellry that can be worn by both men and women is designed on the computer – for example a ring that simulates the movement of water.
