Thom Browne, the American designer and tailor who turned sartorial standards and masculine stereotypes on their head with the shrunken proportions of his signature charcoal grey tailoring, brings a similarly uncompromising line to tabletop in his first collaboration with Haviland Limoges porcelain.
Haviland, a company established in France in the 1840s by an American family, interpreted Browne’s desires for generous volumes and exact lines across the collection of teacups, a pot, sugar box, creamer, tea plates and bowls. In translucent white, each piece is decorated with four grey bars (echoing the brand’s stripe insignia) applied through Haviland’s Chromolithography process.
We can happily imagine Browne, a big collector of artefacts, and his partner, Andrew Bolton, the visionary Wendy Yu curator in charge of the Costume Institute at The Met, entertaining at their elegant home – a restored 1920s mansion built for Anne Vanderbilt on the Upper East Side. But would it be Ceylon, Lapsang Souchong or Earl Grey? Browne is among a host of fashion and music creatives who are turning their hand to fine porcelain.
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(Image credit: Neil Godwin at Future Studios for The Blend)
Another New York-dwelling visionary, the legendary Vogue fashion director Grace Coddington, is equally enamoured with the ritual of teatime. The 80-something, Welsh-born Coddington, who began her career as a model for Norman Parkinson and Helmut Newton, has teamed with French family firm Astier de Villate (founded in 1996) to create mugs and teapots featuring her three treasured Persian cats, Blondie, Jimi and Blanket.
Coddington’s feline friends clearly have a stellar career of their own, having already featured as muses in her illustrated book “The Catwalk Cats” (published by Steidl), which is full of her witty illustrations alongside photographs by her partner, Didier Malige.
“They have a mind of their own,” she remarks of the cats and their antics, which, for this collection, she has captured in red and black sketches that are realised in relief on the handmade vessels. Astier de Villate’s distinct milky glaze is inspired by 18th-century porcelain-making traditions, and the Grace Coddington collection has just recently launched at Liberty London.
Sarabande exclusive plates, £149 for two, sarabandefoundation.org
(Image credit: Sarabande)
Also guaranteed to fuel conversation are the fine bone china limited-edition plates from Sarabande Foundation, handmade by Duchess China 1888 in Staffordshire. Sarabande’s CEO, Trino Verkade, has been building out the collection year by year, collaborating with the Foundation’s extraordinary patrons, with funds going to the not-for-profit Sarabande, established by the late Lee Alexander McQueen, which supports artists across fine art, photography, fashion and jewellery with scholarships, mentorship and studio/gallery spaces.
You can buy pairs or a set of six with designs by Tim Burton, Alexander McQueen, Daniel Roseberry for Schiaparelli, Sir Ridley Scott, Francesca Amfitheatrof and Jake Chapman. Indeed, lobster would be very at home next to Roseberry’s portrait of Elsa Schiaparelli, as would a spray of culinary “foam” on Burton’s aquatic monsters. “People come back year on year to add to their collection, and the plates look as good on the wall as on the table,” says Verkade.
The vegan nut roast might happily land on Ulla Johnson’s second collection with Cabana Magazine and its editor-in-chief, Martina Mondadori. Exuberant and rich in colour, this hand-painted, made-in-Italy assortment stretches to table linen and gold-flecked Murano glassware.
Johnson, a mother of three who founded her line of footloose, bohemian-leaning fashion in 1999, lives between Brooklyn and Montauk and works with craftspeople worldwide. “I tend to always come back to the pieces touched by hand,” she says.
And representing the music world, Pet Shop Boys have thrown their conical hats into the ring with a variety of limited-edition tea sets made by Duchess China 1888. In a palette of classic royal blue and white, the designs feature the duo’s silhouettes alongside iconic emblems from their four-decade career. It would, indeed, be a sin to miss out.
Pet Shop Boys Since 1984 saucer and milk jug (from a set), sets from £200, petshopboys.co.uk
(Image credit: Pet Shop Boys)
Good to know
Pet Shop Boys Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe created their tea sets with long-time design collaborators Farrow. The ceramics are the first products in the Since 1984 collection, launched to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the duo’s debut single, the original version of West End Girls.
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