Susan Holzinger

Susan Holzinger runs a one-woman jewellery and design-object studio out of Zimmerlistrasse 6 in Kreis 4, a few tram stops from the old town and squarely inside the neighbourhood cluster this category groups together. She completed her diploma in jewellery and equipment design at Zurich's Höhere Schule für Gestaltung in 1993 and has run her own practice, under one name or another, ever since. If you are picturing a display case of solitaire diamonds, recalibrate: her catalogue is built from interchangeable acrylic colour elements, pressed silver sheet and knurled stainless steel, and her take on the partner ring reads more like a small design object than a conventional band. For a couple who wants something nobody else in Zurich is wearing, that is exactly the point.

The path here is documented on her own site rather than simply asserted. After her 1993 diploma she worked freelance from her own atelier, collaborating for a time with fellow designer Eva Bruggmann under the label Femail. In 1996 she started her own line under the name Artickel, then from 2000 to 2003 she was part of a three-person collective, A-Z Artikel, alongside Cathérine Gauchat and Nicola Lincke, producing small production runs and one-off commissions out of workshops in Zurich and Dielsdorf. Once that collective wound down she continued alone as Susan Holzinger, Schmuck und Objekte, and still works with Lincke on the metalworking side at a workshop on Brüelstrasse 10 in Dielsdorf, while design and sales stay at the Zimmerlistrasse atelier in Zurich. Her pieces are also carried at four outside galleries, among them Friends of Carlotta at Neumarkt 22 in the old town, which gave her work a dedicated solo exhibition in March and April 2022, a second, independent read on the work rather than only her own site's account of it.

The main site itself is essentially one long, illustrated catalogue rather than a shop with filters and categories. Dozens of named pieces run down the page, mostly rings and bangles, each with a short line about the idea behind it, its materials, and, for most of them, a CHF figure. Prices for the fixed designs range from CHF 88 for a wire-wound Federring in steel up to CHF 2500 for a wall-mounted mirror cabinet called Boudoir, with most rings landing somewhere between CHF 300 and CHF 800. A recurring theme across the range is transformability: a family of rings called Farbspielringe use interchangeable coloured acrylic elements that turn or swap to change the ring's face, and one design in that family, Piet, gets 64 different colour combinations out of just four elements. None of that is standard bridal-counter stock, and that is deliberate: it is one designer's own vocabulary, built since 1993, not a manufacturer's catalogue.

Partner and wedding rings get their own dedicated page, and it is worth reading before assuming this is the same offer as everywhere else in the category. The centrepiece design is called Randrierringe: a pair of stainless steel base rings, one per partner, plus a third ring shared between the couple with a deliberately knurled, rough surface. That third ring is meant to move: given as a gift, then won back through courtship, a piece of relationship theatre built into the metal, and the site's own text says the rough surface exists so the love does not fall asleep. Alongside it sits Fliessmusterringe fein, a ring pressed from fine silver sheet into an irregular, finely structured surface; each one comes out slightly different because of how the metal deforms under pressure, and a couple can have a chosen word or a press-date worked into the surface as part of that same pressing rather than engraved afterward. A second, coarser version of the same pressing technique, also called Fliessmusterringe, is offered in yellow gold and fine gold instead of silver. A fourth option, Herzring, hides a small heart shape inside a rotating insert, sold as a one-part or two-part ring with or without a fine-gold lining. None of these four designs carries a published CHF figure; the page states plainly that pricing is on request, the one place on the site where the transparency of the rest of the catalogue does not carry through.

How it's organised

The whole site reads like a portfolio rather than a retail catalogue, and that shapes how you use it. There is no filter by price or material and no checkout that we found; each entry gets a short, sometimes lyrical line about the idea behind it ahead of the plain material and price line. A separate overview page groups everything loosely by type, finger rings, arm jewellery, ear jewellery, and one-off design objects, which is the closest thing to a menu the site offers. If you already know you want a partner ring, go straight to that page rather than scrolling the full catalogue; if you don't yet know what you want, the overview page and the short descriptions are actually a reasonable way to browse one designer's range without anyone standing over your shoulder.

For a newcomer to Zurich

This is where the caveats sit, and they are worth being upfront about. The site runs in German only. There is no language toggle, and nothing on any page we read is offered in English, so if your German is not strong, the wordplay-heavy style of the descriptions will be harder going than a plain product spec would be. There is no published process for booking a visit, no stated opening hours, and no online store or checkout, so the only route in is the contact page, by phone or by email at kontakt@susanholzinger.ch. Lead time for a commissioned partner ring, any resizing policy after the fact, and shipping or customs terms for a piece bought here and later sent abroad are not published anywhere on the site, so treat all three as questions for that first email rather than something you can plan around in advance. What is transparent is the pricing on the standing catalogue: a CHF figure sits next to almost every fixed design, which is more than some bespoke ateliers in this city publish at all, even if the partner ring line itself withholds a number until you ask for one.

How it compares

Next to the bench-based goldsmiths this category also lists, ones who build a setting around a client's own diamond and quote in a familiar cut-clarity-carat vocabulary, Susan Holzinger is doing something categorically different: design-object jewellery where the concept, an exchanged knurled ring, a pressed date in silver, a hidden heart, comes first and the metal is secondary. That makes her a poor match for a buyer set on a classic solitaire, and a strong one for a couple who wants a partner ring that reads as a piece of design rather than a resale asset. The gallery placement outside her own site, including a dedicated solo show at Friends of Carlotta in 2022 rather than a shared group listing, is a harder credential to check than a self-published portfolio alone, and it lines up with what her own site says about her training and output.

The verdict

Susan Holzinger is not the place to go for a traditional diamond engagement ring, and she does not pretend to be one. What she offers instead is a genuinely distinctive partner ring vocabulary: a knurled stainless steel ring exchanged between two people, a one-of-a-kind pressed silver ring that can carry a stamped word or date, and a hidden-heart design, all built by one designer whose documented practice runs back to a 1993 diploma, with outside gallery representation to back it up. The catalogue prices are unusually transparent for a one-person atelier, dozens of fixed designs with a CHF figure attached to nearly every one, even if the partner ring line itself withholds a number until you ask. The real caveat is practical rather than creative: a German-only site, no published appointment process, and no stated lead time, resizing policy, or shipping terms for anyone buying from, or leaving, Switzerland. None of that should stop a couple set on something genuinely different from sending that first email; it just means the planning happens in conversation rather than on the page.