Women’s Stories – Yael Shenberger
Can you introduce yourself?
Hi, I’m Yael, a partner at ATA since 2011 — four years before the first store officially opened. The early years were about decoding and defining ATA, shaping what we thought ATA could and should become in the future.
I’m 60 years old, a graduate of Art History and Hebrew Literature at Tel Aviv University, and for two decades I worked as a costume designer / stylist / dresser for commercials, television, and occasionally films.
Where do you draw inspiration from?
Inspiration is endless. In a way, inspiration draws me in. Every moment, every place, every sensation can become material.
Sometimes I say that deadlines are my inspiration — it sounds like a joke, but it’s true. Working within time constraints forces me to distill chaotic ideas into something precise.
How do you begin the creative process for a new product or collection?
At first, it’s a combination of overload, complete mental emptiness, and a mild anxiety attack. Over the years, I’ve taught myself to hold onto one small thing and move forward from there.
Many solutions come to me in dreams or while walking. A lot gets resolved on foot, between my home in Jaffa and ATA’s studio on Tushiya Street.
What part of your workday or process do you love most?
Those rare moments of deep focus — and the moment of being understood.
Because I can’t draw at all, I learned to describe clothes and have someone else draw them. That process isn’t simple; my mind has to connect to someone else’s hand. When the mind and the hand finally meet, it’s a moment of joy and relief.
How do craft and handwork intersect with your practice?
Every child is born with an attraction to craft, if we understand what craft really is. “Handwork” wasn’t always something that needed to be highlighted — it was once a basic human skill necessary for survival. Gradually, this eroded, making us more dependent.
In my own life, it was part of my environment growing up. My grandfather was a painter (I wouldn’t hang one of his paintings in my home, but unlike me — he truly knew how to draw). My mother shaped my understanding of traditional feminine crafts: knitting, embroidery, sewing.
My father taught me how to fix and build things using metal, wood, and plumbing. He also tried to teach me electricity — that worked less well.
A collaboration you dreamt of?
The clothes we created inspired by Jarak Qaribak — the album by Dudu Tassa and Jonny Greenwood. The graphic design was done by Rotem Bix and Liora Zamelman.
At ATA, the collaborations that interest us are those where, at least at the beginning, we don’t know exactly how to make them — collaborations that bring us into fields we’re curious about.
After a short conversation with Dudu about the album — what it contains, who sings on it, where, how the people were brought together, who wrote the songs and when — I realized that the same questions could be asked about ATA.
Jarak Qaribak (“Your Neighbor Is Your Friend”) is the name of an Israeli TV series from the 1970s that taught Arabic. The album includes nine Arabic songs, written in different periods, in different places across the Middle East, sung by nine different singers.
Each garment in the collection references one of the songs, with an index of song titles.
We tried to tell a story through clothing that parallels the story told by the album. And like any story, there is always another story — perhaps the most interesting one is the story each listener and wearer interprets for themselves.
How has the past year and the situation in Israel affected your work?
The war affected everything. Every image, color, word, metaphor felt unusable — because what they represented before October 7 was one thing, and what they carry now is charged with completely different associations.
For a long time, I felt that aesthetic silence was necessary.
A recommendation for life — a brand, book, exhibition, something you consider a must?
Broken Fingaz Crew — a Haifa-based Israeli art collective working in street art. They are among the first generation of graffiti writers in the Middle East. Their work is shaped by the physical and political realities of the region, but also by Western painting traditions and contemporary pop culture. Their works can be seen on the street or commissioned privately — they are fascinating and very much worth following.
Avigail Kolker, a fashion designer who hand-embroideries vintage and antique garments. I love the way she works with worn clothes, adding embroidery that creates a new image on top of the existing one. It’s very rock-and-roll.
“You can find inspiration everywhere — and if not, look again.”
Paul Smith
