"In 2021, when squiggles and wiggles took over the home design landscape, glassware was no exception: Zigzagging stems and wobbly silhouettes became regular fixtures on Instagram tablescapes that wholeheartedly embraced whimsy. More recently, the trend has leaned even more surreal, even into the grotesque. Now, more and more glassware looks like it's melting, dripping, or wilting into the surface of whatever table it's perched upon."
"Take the home categories of high-end retailers like SSENSE and Moda Operandi, filled with deliriously wonky glasses that look like they could function as contemporary sculptures. Brightly colored glasses from RiRa, aptly named the Addled series, which look as if a child molded them clumsily out of clay. Coupes from Completed Works collapse and drip all over themselvespooling at the base like melted wax globbed at the bottom of a pillar candle."
"Artist and architect James Wines describes these pieces as meeting all the practical requirements of a candleholder, except with a distinct aesthetic point of view. Photo: Alec Kugler for Driveway [These melting candleholders include] references to people's romantic associations with cascading wax, the connections between glassblowing and liquescent fluidity, plus a commentary on the relationships between rigid stability versus relaxed materiality, Wines said in an artist statement from Table Top."
Glassware trends have shifted from zigzagging stems and wobbly silhouettes to increasingly surreal, drooping, melting forms that blur functionality and sculpture. Retail home categories at SSENSE and Moda Operandi offer wonky glasses treated as contemporary sculptures. RiRa's Addled series features brightly colored, childlike molded shapes. Completed Works coupes and MoMA Design Store highballs display collapsing, dripping, and wind-bent silhouettes. Ross Lovegrove's Bormiolo Rocco glasses appear crumpled like a discarded draft. James Wines and SITE created candlesticks resembling melted wax, referencing cascading wax, glassblowing’s liquescent qualities, and tensions between rigid stability and relaxed materiality.
Read at www.architecturaldigest.com
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