Designer interview - Yael Falk

Last week was Jewellery week and to bring that to a close chaincreative wants to introduce a talented (aren't they all) designer who uses wire to create both sculptures and jewellery in completely unique ways. Chaincreative has been a bit of a fan for some time and we've met her before in our visit to Israel. Yael Falk is a crochet designer which fits in well with her other career as a product designer. The structural quality of crochet has been something that's long fascinated us here at chaincreative which goes a long way to explaining why we're such fans.

I was so pleased when she agreed to be interviewed and it will be lovely to find some great images of her work to support our Designer Interview for the Jewellery strand.

Chain Creative Interview
Questions of creativity and inspiration

My real name is Yael Falk, I market my hand made designs under the name YooLa .

Country of origin? Israel

You are certainly very talented in so many ways! Tell us where we can find out about your very different areas of work : www.baribua.com is my industrial design firm web site, it has a sub section for YooLa, my hand made designs.

Describe your various creative skills:

I’m very inventive, good technical capabilities, ok hands (but not super), good sense of colours, not patient (hard to believe, I know).

This is the question I love to ask!! When did you start to crochet and who taught you? My grandma taught me how to crochet when I was sixish (maybe a bit older). the first item I remember making was a dark purple and yellow rag for my dolls ….
Surprisingly it survived many years of neglect. When I started crocheting with metal a couple of years ago I was surprised to find out that my fingers still remember, apparently its like riding a bicycle, once you have it its yours for life.

When did you start to concentrate on using metal as a crochet medium and why?
On 2004 while we were on a relocation period in Switzerland I was looking for a way to keep my creativity and hands busy. I took two courses at a local jeweller, one was basic jewellery techniques and the other was manipulation of wire metals….. and the love story began.


The name of the business is interesting. What was the inspiration behind it? Yoola is actually sort of a nickname to my name Yael, and by that it reflects the personal aspect of my designs.

What influences your style and output? What are your inspirations?

I assume the fact that I'm an industrial designer (and this) influences my items in regards of it being very structural and I hope rather “ clean” and clear. I adore nature structures and colour combinations and although I could not gaze at nature for hours I certainly love to use it as inspiration.

What are the most important aspects of your work to you?
I think that I could not have gotten so far without being very creative, and always exploring new materials and techniques. I love inventing, I find it hard to repeat anything, I'm always further developing... I think that without that “piece” of the puzzle I could not have found my patterns and it could not have become interesting.

Which project or piece of work are you most proud of?
I’m very proud of my pomegranates, (these were the inspirations for us too!) I feel it has been sort of a turning point into arty larger scale projects.
Here is the place to tell a secret, during the last couple of months I have been working on a series of metal crocheted lampshades. (That sounds really exciting and fascinating; we look forward to seeing those!!!)
People that find me crazy crocheting the poms stay overwhelmed with my lamps. I hope to be able to share it with you shortly.

When are you most happy when you’re working?
When I have a new idea, I love to look backwards and be able to track the process I went through getting there.

Thank you for chatting!
Thank you for inviting me to chat

Love Bee

Don't forget to keep checking for those lampshades and much more at Yoola's Etsy shop!