A few months ago, designer Eva Zeisel was contacted by Swarovski, the Austrian cut-crystal manufacturer. They asked her to submit ideas for designs and said they’d send her a contract so she could get started.
“I hope it arrives soon,” Zeisel, who is 98, told her daughter matter-of- factly. “I am unemployed!”
She exaggerates. The irrepressible Zeisel — one of the 20th century’s first industrial designers, and a leading force, still, in American design — is, at nearly 100, busier, more productive and more celebrated than ever.