Gabriele Gmeiner is working in Venice since 2003 in her workshop at Campiello del Sol, where she produces shoes made to measure of the finest quality.
She studied in London at Cordwainers College specializing in the traditional shoe craft and in Paris at the Centre Formation Technologique Grégoire for saddlery. Her working experiences have taken place all over Europe for about ten years, among others at John Lobb in London and in Paris, and at Hermés in Paris.
Last but not least she worked at the atelier of Rolando Segalin, the last interpreter of this tradition in Venice.
Besides a traditional formation she made a few sidesteps into the field of art. One of her artistic projects brought her to Tokio where she experimented with traditional crafts and materials of the Japanese culture. These works have been exhibited at Gallery ef in Tokio and at the Historical Museum of Vienna.
She has held art workshops for small children and college students, and she has taught shoemaking at the Venice Santa Maria Maggiore prison in a project of rehabilitation.
Since 2010, Gmeiner directs every year in the month of July the shoemaking workshop of the Salzburg Festival making shoes to measure for opera singers and actors to bring the costumes to a perfection.
Her present work unifies the artistic spirit and the best traditions of craftsmanship. Young apprentices from all over the world help in the production and learn the secrets of the art at her workshop.