Moritz Gottlob’s jewellery isn’t flashy. There are no big stones, or ostentatious ornaments. It’s not even that expensive. Each Gottlob World bracelet is unpretentious cut from .999 silver and stamped with a four leaf clover design. Some of them wear gold, colorful beads, or a sterling silver leaf. Nearly all of them cost just a tad over $100.
Despite their modest appearance and price, Gottlob World bracelets are huge. They've become a subtle calling card for those in the know, worn by stylish members of an international menswear community.
Gottlob World started in 2023, while Gottlob was living in Japan, but its roots go back another two decades. Gottlob’s mother has been making jewellery for 20 years, specializing in one-offs. Ehen her son decided to move from Cologne to Tokyo, he asked if she would make something for him. “It was a lucky charm for my travelling,” Gottlob remembers. “Something I could take with me from my mum.”
Over the next six months that Gottlob spent traveling through Japan, his bracelet consistently attracted attention. “People started asking me what the bracelet was, and then people were asking if they could buy one,” he says.
He asked his mom to send over some beads, and then sat in his Shibuya apartment assembling his first proper release. Eventually, he decided to take the plunge and DM'd his favorite store, Vancouver’s Neighbour, on Instagram to see if it'd be interested in selling his bracelets. Neighbour quickly placed a 20-piece order.
Gottlob's Japanese excursion followed a career spent in product design, including six years at adidas. Though it helped Gottlob lay the foundations for his own brand, his previous work was a far cry from Gottlob World. “I was working on shoes that hundreds of thousands of people would wear,” he says. “Now, when I’m hand-delivering a bracelet, I feel more nervous than I was when presenting those concepts. This is more me.”
That personal connection manifests in each bracelet’s four leaf clover motif. As well as being Moritz’s surname, “Gottlob” has another meaning in German, roughly translating to an expression analogous to “Thank god” in English. “If something almost hits your head, you’d say ‘Gottlob, nothing happened,’” he explains. “That’s why the logo has the four leaf clover charm: It’s a lucky charm.”
Gottlob returned to Germany in December 2023 and, a couple of months later, dedicated himself entirely to his brand. After assembling the bracelets at home, Gottlob self-distributed them by mail and backpack at fashion week events. “The first time I had them in Paris they were just in my backpack,” he says. ”People would stop me in the street and ask if I was the guy with the bracelets.”
Gottlob World wearers began reaching out to Gottlob to tell him about their chance encounters in Osaka or impromptu conversations in New York, all because of a matching bracelet. “I hardly know any of these people but it’s cool to see how they connect,” he says. “That’s the beauty of it, that people meet and share it with each other.”
“I think unique jewelry is a good conversation starter, period,” says Theophilos Constantinou, the founder of Psyche Olive Oil, and a Gottlob bracelet collaborator. “A Gottlob bracelet is extra unique, handmade with love. It is a subtle flex.. You become part of the Gottlob World. A club of sorts, though I prefer ‘world.’”
Felix O’Sullivan, a London-based brand manager, recently began wearing two Gottlob bracelets at once. “I tend to do one on each wrist and without any rings,” he says. “I feel they deserve their own space, without any other distractions.” O’Sullivan believes that Gottlob remains “a real if you know, you know brand” despite its impressive omnipresence. “I was in Paris last summer talking to someone about my bracelet,” he remembers. “And she said she’d seen so many people wearing them throughout the week that she’d thought it was an event access pass.”
To Gottlob, the community born of his bracelets is a pleasant surprise. It’s also a key difference to his previous career, which was far more impersonal.
“When I was working at big corporations, you always had to ask someone to do something or pay someone to do something,” he says. “Now, people want to come together and create something more meaningful. That’s the beauty of it. Everywhere I go there’s someone new to meet.”
Gottlob’s bracelet “just resonated with me,” says Saager Dilawri, founder of Neighbour. “It was cute, interesting, different, a bit off beat, no one else was carrying it and it just felt like it was worth trying.” The bracelets regularly sell out, Dilawri explains, their price point making them a nice add-on purchase for customers who like that they are “a bit different and fun.”
Most days, Dilawri wears a Gottlob bracelet himself. “Moritz is so personable and a genuine, nice guy,” he says. “The combination of that and people being into what he’s doing has created a community of friends wearing the bracelets in their own way.”
A couple of years on from Gottlob’ speculative DM to Neighbour, Gottlob World bracelets are sold internationally; the stockist list reads like a who’s who of progressive stores across the world. In addition to Neighbour, who have kept stocking Gottlob World ever since, there’s Nitty Gritty and Tres Bien in Sweden, Dover Street Market in London and Ven.Space in New York.
But when he first asked his mother to make him a bracelet, Gottlob was just looking for a reminder of home. Now, Gottlob World is much bigger than bracelets. “In this day and age when everything is digital, it’s nice that people meet in the real world,” the German designer says. “There’s no big master plan of where I want to be in a year. Through the people who are wearing the bracelet, I want to see what the future holds.”
