The 24-year-old twin sisters Geertje and Roos Eek are stunned after the burglary Monday night in their jewelry workshop at Strijp-R in Eindhoven. Two burglars took the jewelry and the entire stock of raw materials. Coincidentally, the sisters had stored their gold elsewhere that night.
Glad the gold is still there but angry and sad that the jewelry and valuable raw materials like brass have been stolen. The sisters’ feelings are all over the place. “They only get a few bucks for it, but it’s worth much more to us,” says Geertje Eek.
“There had been an attempted break-in before.”
The daughters of the well-known furniture designer Piet Hein Eek started their sustainable jewelry line under the name Tweek four years ago. They make the jewelry in collaboration with various high-tech factories with the aim of losing as little material as possible.
Shortly before the burglary, the building had already been broken into, but nothing was taken. “We thought it was just vandalism at the time,” says Geertje. The perpetrators taped the sensor so that the alarm would not go off during the burglary.
“We have nothing now.”
“My father was at the building earlier this morning and saw that a window was broken,” says Geertje. When he arrived at our room, he saw that it had been broken open and our jewelry had disappeared.”
Geertje still can’t believe what happened. “We put everything we had into it. We have nothing now.”
The estimated value of all stolen goods amounts to about 50,000 euros. The fact that the burglary happened exactly during the Dutch Design Week makes it all the more sour.
“Our presentation of jewelry is a bit sparse at the moment.”
“My sister Roos is now very brave at the presentation at the DDW to tell us what we do”, Geertje Eek says. The presentation is a bit ‘sparse’ now, because most of the new collection has disappeared. The sisters are not insured “We are a start-up company and have cut back on this.”
The sisters are not confident that the perpetrators will be caught. However, they do share the security footage in the hope that someone will recognize the men.
Geertje first wants to let everything sink in before she picks up the thread again. “I’ll grab a drink tonight and then we’ll continue tomorrow.”