The Mediterranean is not a single place — it is a layering of civilizations, a collision of trade routes, a thousand years of color and texture compressed into a single coastline. Itay grew up in Israel, but his neighborhood was a mosaic: Yemenite grandmothers with heavy silver bracelets, Moroccan neighbors whose doorways were hung with hand-carved amulets, street markets fragrant with spice and warm with the clink of hammered copper.
“I didn't study design. I absorbed it — through the market, through the street, through the way the light hit the sea on a Tuesday morning.”
That early education in sensory richness shapes every decision Itay makes in the studio. When he selects a gemstone, he is not just choosing a color — he is choosing a feeling. A deep amber citrine might recall the glow of evening lanterns. An ocean-blue labradorite carries the memory of Haifa harbor at dusk.
Los Angeles has been his home for over two decades, and the city has woven itself into his work as well — the clean lines of the Pacific, the golden sprawl of the hills, the effortless blend of ethnicities that makes the city feel, in some ways, like a modern Mediterranean in its own right.
When people ask Itay where his inspiration comes from, he smiles and gestures broadly. It comes from everywhere, he says. It has always come from everywhere.
