By Maria Deschamps
Meeting Elizabeth Goldfeder, Founder and President of Reflectel, who shares my passion for creativity and business, is truly inspiring. Elizabeth’s dedication to her craft, her impressive success, and her adaptability in the face of technological advancements are qualities I deeply value. It’s impossible not to admire Elizabeth for her steadfast dedication to her art, her remarkable success, and her limitless creativity.
My conversation with Elizabeth and Jerome Levin, Senior Production Manager, centers on her business and decades of experience with fine art frames and Mirror TVs, was enlightening, motivating and inspirational. Elizabeth’s knowledge of framing, along with her expertise in frame customization, makes Reflectel stand out. Their recent bespoke projects, like hand stitched leather frames inspired by Hermes accessories, Cartier watches and Ferrari car seats, showcase their originality and attention to detail.
Maria: We’ve featured you in TD in the past, so I feel like our audience has a working knowledge of Reflectel’s Mirror TV products. What’s new and how are you innovating?
Elizabeth: Yes, TD did a lovely article about my decades of experience in the fine art framing industry and how the transferable design skills helped create and establish Reflectel Mirror TV in 2013. GK Framing was founded in 1986 which has placed us in the foremost position as bespoke frame designers. We come to the Mirror TV industry from the consumer and prosumer perspective, especially our production manager Jerome, who spearheaded the sound bar integration into the mirror TVs. We count on the proven technology of stellar brands like Samsung, LG, and Sony for our products. After almost 10 years, we are experts at concealing technology into our TV Mirrors and TV frames.
Elizabeth Goldfeder
We are known throughout the industry to both support and enhance A/V systems integrators, equally we are well known to satisfy the rigorous demands of the interior designer and architectural communities. Reflectel Mirror TV is, in a manner of speaking, the culmination of Technology Designer’s current mission, which is to more seamlessly integrate the design and technology spaces.
A perfect example is a TV/Soundbar Frame we fabricated a few months ago. We worked with a client who asked for the leather frame to evoke the appearance of their Ferrari car seat design. I worked on the leather frame design and various stitching patterns with the client and alongside me, Jerome designed the frame profile and functionality of how the frame and the sound bar were going to interface seamlessly to create that perfect mix of art, design and technology.
Maria: Gorgeous! I’m loving the leather with the detailed red stitching.
Jerome: So do we! The client requested the frame to be surface mounted. The frame’s heavy-duty articulated wall mount and front facing sound bar determined the thickness of the frame. The mount mechanism had to be fully concealed within the frame to avoid any gap between the frame and the wall – a wall box was not an option.
To secure the framed mirror TV to the wall we typically use a French cleat hanger. It is stable, reliable and can support very heavy items. Of course we can also install our product with a fixed or articulated TV wall mount. We recommend the French cleat because our clients often favor the shallowest frame projection.
We recently designed TV frames for the Fontainebleau Las Vegas that also had to be six-to-seven inches deep. The client wanted a solution that would cover the TV and the mount and trusted Reflectel for the bespoke solution. We work with client’s specifications and material requests and the results are really incredible.
Jerome Levin
Maria: I can tell the Ferrari Leather frame is solid wood, so it must be heavy too.
Elizabeth: Yes, it is heavy but solid and structurally sound. Our Leather Mirror TVs and Frame TVs are hand-wrapped and all the stitching details are customized. We pick out every detail, the thread color, the leather hide color, and texture to assure the client satisfaction. Some of our leather frames include ornaments on the sides of the frames including brass or chrome rings or studs, leather stitched straps or belts or a combination of all of them incorporated together.
Leather gives us one of the most creative design opportunities because of the sumptuous nature of the raw material and the many tailored details that we can add. We get inspiration from many of the fine leather goods we are familiar with including luxury handbags and shoes!
Another project we are excited to share is one of our Grand Portrait orientations with a beautiful 12 karat, white gold, hand-gilded and hand-carved wood frame. This is a case where the sound bar was put at the top side of the frame. This was installed in a large New Jersey home with cathedral ceilings on a textured stone wall above a mantle where a sound enhancement solution in the Mirror TV was necessary because they did not want in-wall or free standing speakers.
Jerome: For this particular client the goal was to provide a very simple-to-operate integrated soundbar with enough power and sound fidelity to resonate throughout the volume of the room. The cathedral ceiling significantly enhanced the quality of the sound coming out of a small sound system.
Elizabeth: Part of the magic in concealing technology is our one-way glass material which is a kind of glass that is semi-transparent on one side and reflective on the other. If there’s no light source behind the glass, it reads as black. Reflectel Mirror TV glass is highly prized because it has the highest TV image transmission and is both optical quality and water white (low iron) material (with the green tinge removed). In cases when the mirror glass is larger than the TV, the balance of the glass is back-painted, therefore the mirror phenomena harmoniously occurs throughout.
Maria: All right, interesting. And how does the sound project into the room since there is glass in front of the speakers?
Jerome: The sound bar orientation that’s typically facing the listener, is now pointing upward toward the ceiling – the height of the sound bar becomes the depth because it’s flipped over vertically. The top side of the frame has a very wide cut-out that matches the length of the sound bar plus a few inches on each side in case the sound bar should need to be replaced in the future with a larger model. It’s just a long slot on the top side of the frame. There’s nothing blocking the sound from traveling beyond the frame. The soundbar is secured within that cavity with vinyl and metal mechanical supports. The height of the back-painted mirror section that is above the TV screen is determined by the shelf structure and the depth of the sound bar. My objective is to reduce the height to its minimum which is approximately four and a half inches.
If the sound bar is facing out, we add a custom grid in front of the sound bar itself, which is essentially a frame with fabric stretched all the way around. The end result is a very attractive product tailored to meet the soundbar opening and the frame finish.
Elizabeth: We can work with almost any television, but we recommend TVs with the highest ratings for brightness and the shallowest depth. We can work with most sound bars. As Jerome said, there are certain limitations. A/V Integrators have come to rely on Reflectel’s design-forward recommendations and structural requirements. Of course, many of our clients are interior designers and architects and they trust Reflectel’s experience to take their design inspirations to create one-of-a-kind and functional Mirror TVs or TV Mirrors.
Maria: Tell me about your Signature Series.
Elizabeth: We offer two distinct groups of products; the first and most sought after is our bespoke group, which are all handmade frames; the leather, the gilded wood shaped and gilded carved, the hardwoods, and the metals. These are unique custom creations. Additionally, we have a value-engineered line called Signature Series where everything is custom cut to size. The molding profile and finish are what we call prefinished.
The essence of Reflectel is that we’re innovating our frame design around the most cutting edge TVs and soundbars. We keep current by going to industry events and following industry news. Our A/V Integrator clients bring us challenging projects and we provide solutions. Our design-build community clients bring us their design visions and we problem solve to make them a reality. After 35 years in the frame design industry, we have had the luxury of working with some of the top designers in the world.
Maria: Designers are often drawn to unconventional shapes to create something special and “out of the box”. Therefore circular, square, and portrait mirror TVs are ideal shapes to use when concealing TVs. These unexpected forms create a striking impact in any space, delivering the ‘WOW’ factor that designers constantly seek.
Elizabeth: Yes, they are. Designers especially want to use the frame as a design element in a room to showcase their signature style and verve. Our bespoke Contour Series of Mirror TVs and TV Frames are an uncommon but welcome solution for hiding technology and have become very popular with designers and homeowners in recent years. The best part is they can all also have an integrated sound bar. The favorites in this contour line-up are our leather rounded corner frame and the star of the show is our circle frames in supple leathers with ornamentation around the circumference.
Jerome: And our square mirror TV is another popular shape. Many of our square shaped frames can easily house sound bars because they are wide and tall, and it gives us plenty of room to work with. For that reason It is more straightforward to integrate a soundbar.
Maria: This is what truly resonates with me about Reflectel, your unwavering passion for seamlessly merging design and technology. It’s truly inspiring. Thank you for taking the time to discuss Reflectel with me and share insights into Mirror TVs and integrating sound bars. It was a pleasure. Also, I want to express my gratitude for the guided tour of the showroom and workshop—it was a fantastic experience that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Elizabeth: We always enjoy our conversations with Technology Designer and it’s been our pleasure to share our knowledge base and give you a virtual tour of our showroom. Please visit when you are in NYC!
To learn more, please visit Reflectel.
