Page 22 - envision11-2021

DEEPER INTO EYEWEAR:
SVEN GÖTTI
20 / NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2021
Portrait of a Designer
By Paddy Kamen
ven Götti is a person of deep feeling,
mostly hidden behind his casual
demeanour and handsome visage.
But his eyes shine when, during
Sour Zoom interview, he talks about
his passion for creating eyewear. I ask if he’s
interested in extending his design talents to
other goods. He smiles softly as he turns his
eyes up and to the right. “No,” he says, “there
are so many possibilities in frame design and
the technology is never boring. I only want to
go deeper into eyewear.”
This is after spending 25 years in the business.
How’s that for loving your work!
But where did he begin? And what turns did his
path take?
Born to Swiss parents, Sven was raised in
Zurich. His father was an importer of printers
and computer equipment and his mother a
photographer. While he wasn’t painfully
introverted, he was happiest when holed up
in his bedroom, building and painting model
glider planes. “My mother wasn’t too pleased
with all the models in my room when it came
time to clean,” he allows, “but I just loved to be
on my own, making things with my hands, and,
being a creative person herself, she was mostly
supportive.”
School was a challenge for Sven. “I did well
enough but reading and memorizing were not at
all what I wanted to do. It wasn’t a happy period
of my life.”
At 16, Sven entered an apprenticeship to become
an optician. “I enjoyed the opportunity to do a
wide variety of work with my hands and learned
a lot about quality eyewear.” It was a four-year
program, after which he decided to become
an optometrist. He left home for the first time
and enjoyed the pleasures of university life as a
student in Karlsruhe (Germany).
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