Design
A fun collaboration- Paul Smith & 1882 Ltd.
Smith’s original drawing for the collection.
Image courtesy of: We Heart
With a lot of excitement, Paul Smith and 1882 Ltd. debuted Stack Collection last year… a wonderful collaboration between the two British designers. Creating a unique series of one-off vases handmade by highly skilled industrial craftspeople, these pieces are all touched with the classic Paul Smith motif of colors and his iconic stripes.
Sir Paul said about the collaboration, “On seeing a stack of plain plates ready for firing inside the kiln I immediately imagined them coloured and could see one of our famous stripes. The rest just followed from there. Emily and her talented team of makers have been painstakingly getting the colours right and figuring out how to construct the vases. Making them watertight hasn’t been easy given they’re made of a hollowed stack of plates, but we got there and are delighted with the results.”
About Smith, Emily Johnson (co-collaborator) said, “Paul has this wonderfully wayward, subversive mind. It’s what makes him a design icon. We’re thrilled to be working with him.”
Image courtesy of: We Heart
The collaboration debuted at Milan’s Design Week last year and an extended assortment of tablewares and objects were presented to the public last fall. Emily Johnson, 1882 Ltd.’s co-founder, founded the company in 2011; and even though she seems relatively “new to the game”, she is no stranger to the art.
As a fifth-generation member of the renowned Johnson Brothers dynasty, she sought a different path by working in advertising in Los Angeles prior to studying design in London. It was at the time that she discovered a gap in British-made ceramics and decided to enlist her father, Christopher Johnson, out of retirement to help her launch a firm. As Wedgwood’s former head of production, the elder Johnson was happy to produce a line of ceramics in his hometown of Stoke-on-Trent alongside his daughter. Quickly, 1882 Ltd. became the country’s most progressive ceramics producer.
Vases are made from an actual stack of colored plates, cut out at the center, and fired together to fuse perfectly.
Image courtesy of: 1stDibs
Each vase ends up being unique which isn’t surprising due to the collection of elements in this complicated process. Every plate is individually fired before a water jet is used to remove the core. The plates are then hand-sprayed with one of 40 specially developed glazes in Smith’s signature “Multi-Stripe palette”. Then, they are fired a second time and carefully stacked to ensure that the vase won’t leak or lean. Finally, the piece is fired one last time before the signature gold top is added.
Smith said, about the beautiful collaboration, “The idea for the design came from observing a loaded kiln, with plates stacked on top of each other. We loved that it looked like stripes.”
Image courtesy of: 2Luxury2
Master potter Keith Dawson described the process as having “a steep learning curve.” A stacked vase constructed from individually colored bone china plates pushed the limits of even Dawson’s expertise; but it also called for “thinking outside the box” for this time-honored technique.
Four firings in the kiln and multiple hours of intricate hand labor is just part of the things that the “can-do” attitude at 1882 Ltd achieves. Johnson says, “If you don’t do things that are innovative and difficult then you never show people what you can do.”
Emily Johnson and Paul Smith.
Image courtesy of: We Heart
Simply stated, each piece in the Stack Collection is a unique work of art. The complex process starts with putting each individual stacking element of fine-bone china through the difficult color matching and application. The final touch of hand-painting the burnished gold piece is always perfection.
The result is a group of vases edged with a sense of delight, paying tribute to both the label’s hallmark playfulness and its unmistakable stripe. We love everything about this… the collaboration, the hand-craftmanship, and even the clever name. Well done!
