A love of textiles and pure, archetypal forms runs like a thread through Berlin-based designer Nobieh Talaei’s biography. Born in 1978 in Teheran, Iran, she grew up immersed in traditional handcraft and tailoring skills through her grandmother, a dressmaker of nomadic heritage who made all the neighbors’ wedding dresses.

At the age of 11, Talaei and her family moved to Berlin. She studied fashion at Esmod in Berlin, and her graduate men’s wear collection was one of the two chosen by Premium to be specially exhibited at the Berlin fashion fair in 2003. Later, she gained merchandising experience with a leading international women’s wear brand, followed by retail management positions with a luxury designer brand. Then came a short stint in interior design, during which she created timeless yet modern environments starring hand-chosen pieces of Bauhaus, Neue Sachlichkeit and 1950’s Scandinavian design.

These different chapters all helped lay the conceptual and aesthetic foundations for her company, which she founded in Berlin with a first NOBI TALAI image collection in 2015.