Description

In dealing with the exhibition objects for IRON MEN in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, I was not only concerned with the weapons and knight’s armour, but also with their engravings and ornaments on the artistically crafted equestrian armour. In the process, I found some interesting details, such as the ornament with the fire plates and flames in the boy’s cuirass of Karl V.

With the brooch of THETIS I wanted to create something new according to the time and varied with the outlines of the fire plates and its flames. These appeared to me more like the tentacles of an octopus and I complemented the octopus with eight “feet” (Greek: októ poús) as well as an eye on the side, a figure emerged like that of Thetis, the shape-shifter.

In the manufacturing process, a 0.6mm stainless steel plate is inspected for flawlessness and placed in the laser machine. The parts are lasered out, inspected, de-scratched, sandblasted and inspected again. The next step is to grind and bend the brooch pins.

If the brooches are still powder-coated with a color, they must be hung on hooks that are guided over a rail. The parts are first chemically pre-cleaned, rinsed and dried at 50° C in the oven. In the next step, the desired color is applied and dried over the rail in the oven at about 200° C for half an hour. After the brooches are cooled, they are carefully packed.

Stainless steel is a very modern resource, and in its colour/ reflection gives off a hint of the precious metals steel respectively silver. The contemporary use of new materials, produced with high tech machines and also worked by hand, brings the jewellery into the 21st century and is thus a sophisticated contrast to the plate art of the Middle Ages. More about the story “the brooch of the Thetis”

– made in Austria!
– 100% design from Austria!
– registered design copyright
– GERMAN DESIGN AWARD special mention 2023
– BIG SEE Product Design Award Winner 2023